DH Unplugged

Good ECO/Markets = Trump Bad ECO/Markets - Biden CTP for Micron is underway AI wins a horse race News from Omaha 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Good ECO/Markets = Trump - Bad ECO/Markets - Biden - CTP for Micron is underway - AI wins a horse race - News from Omaha - India/Pakistan - India stikes Markets - Some Earnings Color - S&P breaks it streak this week - KRI +4, +5 (Spearman +100) - Currency interventions happening Interesting Timing - Skechers U.S.A., Inc. the third largest footwear company in the world, today announced that it has agreed to be acquired by 3G Capital, a global investment firm built on an owner-operator approach to long-term investing. - 3G gets discount as tariffs are softening price - Helped to move the other names in the space higher Heads I Win.... - President Donald Trump took credit for the "good parts" of the economy in an exclusive interview with NBC News airing Sunday, but said that the "bad parts" are former President Joe Biden's economy. - "Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything, but I've only just been here for a little more than three months," Trump said. - "The tariffs have just started kicking in. ... The tariffs are going to make us rich. We're going to be a very rich country," he added. In terms of shortages: - "I don't think a beautiful baby girl needs – that's 11 years old – needs to have 30 dolls," Trump said. - "I'm just saying [children] don't need to have 30 dolls, they can have three, they don't need to have 250 pencils, they can have five," he added. - But, Mira Lago has 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms, a 29-foot-long (8.8 m) pietra dura marble-top dining table, 12 fireplaces, and three bomb shelters. ---WHAT? Ford Earnings - Ford Motor beats by $0.14, misses on revs, co suspends FY25 guidance; says business is strong, adjusted EBIT tracking within prior guidance, excluding new tariff-related impacts - Based on what the company knows now, and its expectation of how certain details and changes will be resolved related to tariffs, the company estimates a net adverse adjusted EBIT impact of about $1.5 bln for full-year 2025. Given material near-term risks, co is suspending guidance. Block Earnings (Last week) - Revenue decreased about 3% from $5.96 billion a year earlier. -  Gross profit rose 9% to $2.29 billion from $2.09 billion a year earlier. That missed analysts' forecasts of $2.32 billion for the quarter. - Gross payment volume hit $56.8 billion, missing expectations of $58 billion, according to StreetAccount. - Stock plunges     Check this out and find out more at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/ Palantir Earnings - Palantir Technologies reports EPS in-line, beats on revs; guides Q2 revs above consensus; guides FY25 revs above consensus - Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.13 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the FactSet Consensus of $0.13; revenues rose 39.4% year/year to $883.9 mln vs the $862.17 mln FactSet Consensus. - U.S. commercial revenue grew 71% year-over-year and 19% quarter-over-quarter to $255 million. - U.S. government revenue grew 45% year-over-year and 9% quarter-over-quarter to $373 million. - Co issues upside guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $934-$938 mln vs. $899.44 mln FactSet Consensus. - Co raises guidance for FY25, sees FY25 revs of $3.890-$3.902 bln vs. $3.75 bln FactSet Consensus. Raises adjusted income from operations guidance to between $1.711 -- $1.723 billion. - Stock down- probably some profit taking as valuation is a bit stretched Kentucky Derby - AI Wins! - Sovereignty won the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville,

Oh boy -  Supply Chain Concerns again? Summertime lines - for goods/food? Empty shelves? China factories shutting down. Talks/No-Talks Underway with China/US. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Now Supply Chain Concerns - Summertime lines - for goods/food? Empty shelves? - China factories shutting down - Talks/No-Talks Underway with China/US - DONE DONE DONE - Lutnick Markets - Capital Raise - Big Boost - ELON - Economics - Big Week - Earnings - The big tech names are on tap - Berkshire annual meeting and earnings this weekend ELON - Elon Musk's xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported. - The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report. - THIS: The artificial intelligence firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion. - "This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach." - ELON also says that he will be stepping back from DOGE and refocus on TESLA HAHA! FAV STORY! - Tesla reported a $97 million loss due to digital assets, the company's Bitcoin holdings. In the fourth quarter, there was a gain of $270 million. - Tesla now excludes Bitcoin swings from its non-GAAP results.  Tesla also backs out stock-based compensation from its adjusted numbers. - That means the Bitcoin gains were included in the company's fourth-quarter adjusted results, and the losses weren't included in the first-quarter adjusted results. - Tesla's report states that the accounting switch was due to the “adoption of the new crypto assets standard.” Powell Under Fire - Update - All is good - no new discussions is helping keep a bid under markets Are Talks Ongoing at ALL? - China says NO - US says YES - Which is it? DONE DONE DONE - Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday teased that the Trump administration has reached its first trade deal, but said it was not fully finalized and declined to name the country involved. - “I have a deal done, done, done, done, but I need to wait for their Prime Minister and their parliament to give its approval, which I expect shortly,” Lutnick told CNBC's Brian Sullivan. Unusual Winner - With consumer sentiment shrinking and concerns about recession - Travel companies are feeling the pinch - BUT, Travel insurance companies are cashing n on the Cancel for Any Reason Plans - People want to travel but are hesitant as they don't know what will be in the future - therefore buy travel insurance - No pure-play publicly traded stock --  Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection, Nationwide Amazon White House - The White House on Tuesday slammed Amazon for reportedly planning to display the cost of President Donald Trump's tariffs next to the total price of products on its site. - "This is hostile and political act by Amazon," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing. - "Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?" Leavitt asked. - Amazon spokesperson tells Washington Post putting tariff rates next to products "was never under consideration for the main Amazon website. - Says Amazon Haul has considered listing import price duties on certain products. ----- What is our take on this? Big Moves - Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers Health, Inc. (NYSE: HIMS) today announced a long-term collaboration designed to make proven obesity care and treatments more accessible, more affordable, and more connected for millions of Americans.

CEOs Selling stock Fed Put in question - Powell under Fire from White House - Markets FED UP! Earnings Season - VERY CLOUDY USD Weak - what are investors thinking? 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Chaos - What next? - Rates - moving in the wrong direction again - USD Weak - what are investors thinking? - A moment for Pope Francis - CEOs - Selling stock Markets - Markets have had it - Done with this nonsense - Fed Put in question - Powell under Fire from White House - Markets FED UP! - Earnings Season - VERY CLOUDY - VIX - back above 30 again (~35) - HyperScalers - not so Hyper... Update One Time Competition - Put Lyrics to Music - The Tariff Blues (DHUnplugged Shirt and Song Play) - We have a clear winner from all of the entries and will announce and play at end of the show - I think it is awesome! ECB The Governing Council today decided to lower the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points. In particular, the decision to lower the deposit facility rate -- the rate through which the Governing Council steers the monetary policy stance -- is based on its updated assessment of the inflation outlook, the dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission. Powell Under Fire - President Trump says "The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, “too late” Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always too late and wrong.....Too Late should have lowered interest rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!" - President Trump says he is "not happy" with Fed Chair Jerome Powell; says he thinks Mr. Powell would leave if he asks him to do so - Is he going to ask - will he leave???????? - How will markets react? --- STOP THE PRESSES - Already did a 180 on that..."No intention of firing Powell" Flurry of Deal Comments Tuesday - As expected, most contradict the other - Confusion as to how long - general happy thoughts - nothing concrete - Markets reacted positively then came off highs Pentagon in Chaos? - White House looking for a new Secretary of Defense, according to NPR - Will he now have a Podcast or go back to Fox and Friends? - Of course the White House press secretary is denying Skinny Minny - Eli Lilly soaring after announcing positive late-stage trial results for its oral weight-loss and diabetes drug, orforglipron, paving the way for a possible launch by the end of 2025 - Novo Nordisk is looking for FDA approval of their pill-form Wegovy weight loss medication Some Eco - April Philadelphia Fed Index -26.4 vs. 10.0 Briefing.com consensus; prior 12.5 - March Building Permits 1.482 mln vs. 1.455 mln Briefing.com consensus; prior revised to 1.459 mln from 1.456 mln - March Housing Starts 1.324 mln vs. 1.418 mln Briefing.com consensus; prior revised to 1.494 mln for 1.501 mln - March Leading Indicators -0.7% vs. -0.4% Briefing.com consensus; prior revised to -0.2% from -0.3% IMF - Downgrades US ECO - The US growth forecast for this year has been given the biggest downgrade among advanced economies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a result of uncertainty caused by trade tariffs. - Growth is now expected to be 1.8% this year, down from the IMF's estimate of 2.7% for the US in January. - The sharp increase in tariffs and uncertainty will lead to a "significant slowdown" in global growth, the Fund predicts. NVDA - NVIDIA breaks below $100 as China-based rival Huawei reportedly preps updated AI chip for mass shipment - Last week, NVDA gapped lower after writing down its inventory by around $5.5 bln,

If this wasn't idiotic it would be funny President Miyagi at it again - Tariff on - Tariff Off Winning - We are Winning so much. Too much winning! Earnings season rolls on 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - If this wasn't idiotic it would be funny - President Miyagi at it again - Tariff on - Tariff Off - Winning - We are Winning so much. Too much winning! - Earnings season rolls on - Need a new CTP stock Markets - Key Reversal Indicator - 1st Green cluster bottom on Monday and Tuesday - Called the near-term bottom - Stock markets slammed - President Trump discussing stocks - Economic Pissing Match - Even more tariffs, or bluffs - VIX HITS 60 back UNDER 30 ANNOUNCING - One Time Competition - Put Lyrics to Music - The Tariff Blues (DHUnplugged Shirt and Song Play) Nice end to the week! - Markets gave some hope to the idea that more exceptions were coming - Across the board, markets gained for the week in highly volatile trade - Last week and the week before saw extreme movements - Bond yields (10 yr) swung between 3.7% and 4.5% (add that to historic records) - At one point equity futures were swinging 1% every 10 minutes in average during height of volatility Wild Ride VIX - Moving lower as things settle down a bit - This is something that everyone should understand - VIX does not stay elevated forever... - VIX moves lower as shocks expire - Great tool for risk management and trading during wild market moves --- Get in and out... Not Inflationary..(wink) - China increased tariffs to 125% - US Increased China tariffs to 145% --- Speaking with colleagues and business owners - they are raising prices as cannot absorb thee levels Tariffs - Are we sick of this discussion yet? - hares of automakers jumped during midday trading Monday following President Donald Trump saying he's looking to "help some of the car companies." --- Auto companies are expecting to see a drop in vehicle sales in the millions, higher new and used vehicle prices, and increased costs of more than $100 billion for the industry, according to research reports from Wall Street and automotive analysts. - BCG expects tariffs to add $110 billion to $160 billion on an annual run rate basis in costs to the industry, which could impact 20% of U.S. new-vehicle market revenues, increasing production costs for both U.S. and non-U.S. manufacturers. - Weekend - Some exemptions are being made for semi's, smartphones and other electronics (Shares jumped Monday) Workaround - Apple airlifted $2 bln worth of iPhones from India ahead of tariffs Boeing - Chinese airlines have been ordered not to take any further deliveries of Boeing aircraft in response to the U.S. imposing 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, Bloomberg News reports. Zero Day - Newsline: Wild intraday gyrations in stocks since "liberation day" have put investors more on edge than ever, and the popularity of zero-day-to-expiration options is partly to blame. - Zero-day-to-expiration options are contracts that expire the same day that they're traded. - The trading volume of 0DTE options tied to the S&P 500 surged to 8.5 million in April, a 23% jump since the beginning of the year and accounting for roughly 7% of the total volume in U.S. option markets, according to data from JPMorgan. NVDA - News Drop - Nvidia said on Tuesday that it will take a quarterly charge of about $5.5 billion tied to exporting H20 graphics processing units to China and other destinations. - The H20 is an AI chip for China that was designed to comply with U.S. export restrictions. It generated an estimated $12 billion to $15 billion in revenue in 2024.

Tariffs are killing markets. A glimpse int what happens when we take a difference course Markets making some of the wort moves in decades Billionaires - all in on Trump lost billions... WAIT !!!!!! Maybe a 90-day pause on Tariffs now...Or Not... More finesse, less sledge hammer? PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Check this out and find out more at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Markets making some of the worst moves in decades - Billionaires - all in on Trump lost billions... - WAIT !!!!!! Maybe a 90-day pause on Tariffs now...Or Not... - More finesse, less sledge hammer? Markets - Key Reversal Indicator - 1st Green cluster bottom on Monday.. Oversold? - Stock markets slammed - President Trump discussing stocks - Economic Pissing Match - Even more tariffs, or bluffs - VIX HITS 60! -- A Quick Poem - Green Eggs and Navarro --- One of the gents that responded to Vietnam's desire to have zero tariffs as "not enough" DAX on Monday and other Markets - Opened up down 10% - clawed back a bunch by end of the day - European stocks down 1.5% YTD 2024 - US Stock bearing the brunt of the move - Hong Kong (after being closed Friday) - closed Monday DOWN 13%! - Monday in Japan, Markets halted, futures trading suspended as Nikkei and Topix plunge more than 5% --- Follow up - then up 6% the next day - Monday YTD US Markets: Heads Up - Just in... - Tuesday at 12:30PM - 'White House Press Secretary says 104% additional tariffs went into effect at noon eastern time because China has not removed it's retaliation. The 104% additional tariff will be collected starting tomorrow April 9th'  -Markets were trying to right themselves - up big to start the day - then this headline.... - What if  - China comes back at 200%? More: - Tuesday afternoon : White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt answers questions on trade at briefing: President Trump not considering delay in tariffs that are due to go into effect tomorrow at 12:01 AM - Where is the negotiation? Seems like a pissing match or bluff with unlimited funds. If you are interested - Rand Paul making all sorts of sense this morning - Trades are win-win. Trade does not mean that one side has to win and one lose. - https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/04/08/sen-rand-paul-on-trump-tariffs-trade-is-an-integral-part-of-capitalism.html Stupid - Taiwan's top financial regulator said on Sunday it will impose temporary curbs on short-selling of shares to help deal with potential market turmoil from U.S. President Donald Trump's new import tariffs, and will take other steps as needed. - Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement it would limit the number of shares that can be sold short and raise the minimum short-selling margin ratio to 130% from 90%, starting from Monday and lasting until Friday. - We have seen how this plays out in the past. More references to bluffing - "I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they're playing with a pair of twos," Bessent said during an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them." VIX - Hits 60 on Monday - then backs off to 45 - Not often we see a run like that. - Still at 45 shows big concerned about near-term volatility. --- S&P 500 top to bottom 7% move today - VIX was at 37 - back to 52 BREAK - IBKR Billionaires losing $$ - Do we feel bad? - Sample of losses on Liberation Day - Zuck lost $18B - Bezos lost $15B What? - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Americans looking to retire aren't concerned about day...

Big changes - lots of year-end market S&P 500 downgrades. Recession and stagflation April - a quick look at some interesting highlights of April (historically) Bill Gates out with a big prediction The Best Deal Ever! (ELON) 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Big changes - lots of year end market S&P 500 downgrades - Recession and stagflation - April - a quick look at some interesting highlights of April (historically) - Bill Gates out with a big prediction - The Best Deal Ever! (ELON) Markets - Corrections happen - Market jumped off the down worst levels on Monday - is worst priced in? - Earnings season starts 4/11 - JPM to report - Year end price targets - lowering - Yields DOWN - Was that the plan all along? OpenAi - OpenAI on Monday announced it had closed its $40 billion funding round, the most ever raised by a private tech company. - The deal values OpenAI at $300 billion, including the new capital. - The round comes to $30 billion from SoftBank and $10 billion from a syndicate of investors. Google Trends - Stagflation - Keyword Search hit highest point in a long time. - Lots of talk about the potential for higher inflation and softer jobs Friday is the UnEmp Report - Expectations are that the rate will tick up from 4.1% to 4.2% - 145-150k people added to the jobs rolls ---- That would till be good numbers. Tariff Day - AKA Liberation Day - April 2nd is the date that the retaliatory tariffs go on- - Facts say you? (I am not a smart man....) --- Between China and Canada, Mexico, estimates that the tariffs would bring in $150 Billion in 2025. - The US Stock market has lost $5.25 TRILLION during the same time - US GDP is $29 trillion annually - what is $150 BILLION going to do? - The U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2025 is projected to be approximately $1.9 trillion. Reagan - He is revered...ReaganOmics...... - April 25, 1987 -  Radio Address.. - " And today many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the Smoot-Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery. You see, at first, when someone says, Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports,' it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works -- but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is: First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs. - https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/radio-address-nation-free-and-fair-trade-4 Something to Consider... - Talk on the street: " Tariffs are a negotiation tactic" (What does that mean anyway) -- Assumption: "US will win the negotiation" - - Has anyone considered: What if it does not? - The thought is that it needs to be "fair" Atlanta GDPNOW - Liked when it looks good - disregarded when looks bad - January 31 initial GDP Forecast for Q was +2.9% - Latest April 1  -3.7%

Inflation - Transitory again.. April 2 dealing approaching! Doctor Copper! Mag 7 = Lag 7 A New 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? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Inflation - Transitory again - End of month - March not so good for US Markets - investors may try to squeeze toward the end - Tariff waves - now there is talk of softening - April 2 is the day - next Wednesday. - A restaurant Chain at ALL-TIME highs.... - Turkey - Market Mayhem - An fun Limerick from a Listener Markets - Doctor Copper! - Mag 7 = Lag 7 - Tesla Woes- Stock bouncing but challenges still remain - March Sadness for Markets... Attention Collectors!  - The New DHUnplugged shirts are finally here! We are going to sell only 6 - the donations received by the end of the month above $250 will get a shirt - Nice white swim/light long sleeve. (The rest are reserved for winners and special occasions) - We will also have the #1 as the first shirt ever out to the public for $1,000. -  Put your address and size in the comments Tariff Day - April 2nd is the date that the retaliatory tariffs go on - Why April 2nd? Why not April 1st?????? --- Worried that is April Fool's day and no one would take them seriously? Copper Prices - 45 year high - What is this? Usually a predictor of the economic conditions - - Seems like a little inflation (China also pumping) - FYI - An average single-family home contains roughly 439 pounds (or 200 kilograms) of copper, primarily in wiring, plumbing, appliances, and hardware Doctor Copper What about Coffee? - Chart - Cents per pound - These increases are driven by climate-related impacts on major coffee-producing countries like Brazil and Vietnam, as well as financial speculation in the market - DOUBLE THE PRICE of last year Coffee Prices Housing Prices - Reports that tariff induced panic is prices of raw materials is pushing prices up - Developers are not going to get behind and this may push prices up - on average $10,000 per new home (at least) Powell on Inflation - Back to Transitory - In his latest speech/commentary last week, he hinted that he believes that the current - During his post-decision press conference last Wednesday, Powell said tariff-induced inflation could be “transitory,” or temporary. - Here we go again! Stagflation Anyone? - Fed sees higher inflation and an economy growing by less than 2% this year - The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee downgraded its collective outlook for economic growth to 1.7%, down from the last projection of 2.1% in December. In the meantime, officials hiked their inflation outlook, seeing core prices growing at a 2.8% annual pace, up from the previous estimate of 2.5%. - In a statement, the FOMC noted the "uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased," adding that the central bank is "attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate." Meanwhile... - The 3-month Treasury rate inverted against the 10-year for a bit earlier this month. - Currently they are locked at the same rate... - This is the Fed's "preferred" measure of the potential for a recession in the future. Boeing - Boeing wins $20-billion contract for Next Generation Air Dominance program - Win comes after Boeing annual loss, strike, other setbacks - On the news, Boeing's shares rise, Lockheed's fall - Lockheed has been plagued by delays in F-35 upgrade - New name of the aircraft? The F-47 ! New-Clear Energy - A nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan is aiming to make history this fall by becoming the first reactor in the U.S. to restart operations after shutting down to be eventually dismantled.

- Markets still unsettled - Retail spending down - another bankruptcy (but who they blame?) - Consumer frayed A New 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? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - Markets still unsettled - Retail spending down - another bankruptcy (but who they blame?) - Consumer frayed - Announcement #1 Closest to the Pin is a good one... - Announcement # 2 New DH Shirts - attention collectors... - March madness - BBall and Markets Markets -Worst month since 2023 - and it is not over - USD is dropping - loss of confidence - Gold - keeps shining - wow what a run! - Revenge of the Dems on Markets? Tesla stock pummeled...(We initiated a new position on this drop - today) - US Stocks  - where is the money going? Attention Collectors!  - The New DHUnplugged shirts are finally here! We are going to sell only 6 - the donations received by this Friday - March 21 above $250 will get a shirt - Nice white swim/light long sleeve. (The rest are reserved for winners and special occasions) - We will also have the #1 as the first shirt ever out to the public for $1,000. -  Put your address and size in the comments Consumer Confidence - The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March experienced a significant drop, falling to 57.9 compared to the Briefing.com consensus of 65.6 and the final reading of 64.7 in February. This marked the third consecutive decline in consumer sentiment. --- A year ago during the same period, the index stood notably higher at 79.4. - Several key factors contributed to this decline. -- The Current Economic Conditions Index decreased from 65.7 to 63.5, down from 82.5 a year earlier. -- Similarly, the Index of Consumer Expectations saw a sharp drop from 64.0 to 54.2, compared to 77.4 a year ago. -- Inflation expectations also played a significant role, with year-ahead inflation expectations climbing from 4.3% to 4.9%, marking the highest level since November 2022. --- Additionally, long-run inflation expectations increased from 3.5% to 3.9%, the largest month-over-month rise since 1993. !--The overarching takeaway from the report was that the decline in sentiment affected various demographic groups across age, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions, with inflation concerns and policy uncertainty emerging as critical factors behind the drop. Consumer Confidence Private Equity - Time Bomb Twitter post? - Yes, agree PE is getting too mainstream and not a good amount of liquidity - not right for most investors - Is it the next bomb waiting to happen? HANG ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Jeremy Siegel is sayibg market could go lower (Tom Lee !!!! We need you!!!!) - Speaking on current market conditions, Siegel pointed to several risk factors that could push stocks lower in the near term. Key concerns include persistently high inflation, Federal Reserve policy decisions, and growing fears of an economic slowdown. While markets have shown resilience in recent months, he believes investors may be overly optimistic about the trajectory of interest rates and economic growth. - “The market has priced in a near-perfect landing,” Siegel said, referencing investor expectations that the Fed will successfully bring inflation down without triggering a recession. - However, he warns that there are still significant headwinds that could derail this outlook. Retail - Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in six years on Sunday and blamed fast-fashion e-tailers Shein and Temu for its demise. - The retailer's operating company is expected to cease all operations in the U.S. and has already begun liquidation sales at its mor...

What goes up? Uncertainty - that word again! American Exceptionalism - the theme for 2025 that is fizzling out quickly. Back from India - Namaste.... Psychological Indicators. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - What goes up? - Uncertainty - that word again! - American Exceptionalism - the theme for 2025 that is fizzling out quickly. - Back from India - Namaste.... - Psychological Indicators Markets - Follow up - "They call it dumb money - ruling again" - how did that turn out? ---- Quantum stocks down 40-50% YTD - Billionaires - kissing the ring and getting rug pulled - TRILLIONS (4) lost in market cap - in the name of what again? (MAGA?) Make America God Awful? - Germany's stock market hits all-time high (even though economy is not doing well) - President Donald Trump marked his 50th day in office on Monday. So far, the stock market is off to its worst start since President Barack Obama's first term in 2009. (Have to go back to Nixon for the next "worst" start comparison) Monday Markets - Worst day for the Nasdaq since late 2022 (-4%) - Tesla plunged 15% - worst day on 5 years (Emperor Elon has new clothes?) Market Update (YTD) - NAS100 down 7% - SPY down 4.5% - SPY Equal Weight down 0.5% - ! Russell 100 Growth Down 10.5% , Russell 1000 Value up 1% - Cruise ships and Airlines - Down 20-30% - Emerging Markets UP 3.5% - European Stocks up 7% - China up 16% - Nat gas up 50% - WTI Crude - Down 7%| - 40% of the stocks in the S&P 500 are off 20% from their recent highs Down from the highs Smacked Stocks Is This the Plan? - Tariffs as negotiating chip? --- How Is that working? - Slashing Government employees and spending --- Is this the Twitter Plan of re-org? - Deregulation? - Tax Cuts? - Bitcoin Reserve (major disappointment?) --- Just the forfeited crypto from criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. - US Sovereign Wealth Fund ---- Are they taking down markets to get better pricing to then prop up? - Rates are Down - but not for a good reason (10Yr @ 4.2%) - - Recession concerns are growing When will Fed step in to save the day? --- Fed has taken harder stance - but they don't have the backbone to stay out of it if markets cave Crypto Check - Not good - Bitcoin - big bump post election and then faded - back to exactly where it was pre-election - ETH - back to levels from Nov 2023 How are the Big Boys doing this year? - Billionaire Index Top Movers.... Billions and Billions Elon Update - TSLA - For seven straight weeks, since Elon Musk went to Washington, D.C. to join the Trump administration, shares in his automaker have declined, closing on Friday at $270.48. It's the longest such losing streak for Tesla in its 15 years as a public company. - Several Wall Street firms this week, including Bank of America, Baird and Goldman Sachs, cut their price targets on Tesla. - Elon was bemoaning how hard it was on him and companies right now....running them "with great difficulty" - President Trump said that in light of this "boycott" of Tesla by the public - he is going out to buy a new Tesla this morning as a sign of support. Quick AI Check - Tech Update - Oracle issued quarterly results on Monday that trailed analysts' estimates, but the company offered bullish comments on its cloud infrastructure segment. - Earnings per share: $1.47 adjusted vs. $1.49 expected - Revenue: $14.13 billion vs. $14.39 billion expected - Revenue increased 6% from $13.3 billion in the same period last year. Net income rose 22% to $2.94 billion, or $1.02 a share, from $2.4 billion, or 85 cents a share, a year earlier

Hot and cold openings - the best of 2024. A real hoot to listen to our antics and shenanigans over the past year or so. What food are they discussing or what hot stock may be on the list? All here on this Best-Of Show, produced by Ryan Rediske! 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? The Winner for ORACLE (ORCL) Winners will be getting great stuff like the new DHUnplugged Shirt!   FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS   See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

CPI comes in HOT, PPI not as bad Retail sales - not a happy number for January News on GameStop DOGE is full attack mode (Dismantling) 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  Warm-Up - CPI comes in HOT, PPI not as bad - Retail sales - not a happy number for January - News on GameStop - - DOGE is full attack mode (Dismantling) - The Winner of the ORCL CTP Markets - The call it dumb money - ruling again - More earnings - driving markets - Buying holding tight - tariffs are not worrisome| - Intel parts up for grabs? Retail Sales - According to reports: Consumers sharply curtailed their spending in January, indicating a potential weakening in economic growth ahead, according to a Commerce Department report last Friday. - Retail sales slipped 0.9% for the month from an upwardly revised 0.7% gain in December, even worse than the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% decline. The sales totals are adjusted for seasonality but not inflation for a month in which prices rose 0.5%. - Excluding autos, prices fell 0.4%, also well off the consensus forecast for a 0.3% increase. - A "control" measure that strips out several nonessential categories and figures directly into calculations for gross domestic product fell 0.8% after an upwardly revised increase of 0.8%. Other Economics - In other economic news Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that import prices accelerated 0.3% in January, in line with expectations for the largest one-month move since April 2024. On a year-over-year basis, import prices increased 1.9%. - Fuel prices increased 3.2% on the month, also the biggest gain since April 2024. Food, feed and beverage costs rose 0.2% following a 3% surge in December. - Export prices also increased, rising 1.3%. Back to Work - President Trump was very vocal about people who work from home. Said they they are really not working - “I happen to be a believer that you have to go to work. I don't think you can work from home. - “Nobody's going to work from home, they're going to be going out, they're gonna play tennis, they're gonna play golf. They're gonna do a lot of things—they're not working.” --- Question: Doesn't President Trump work from home? -----JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon scorned calls from some employees to soften the bank's five-day return-to-office policy in an animated town hall meeting last week, according to a recording reviewed by Reuters. - Employees at the largest U.S. bank have complained on internal message boards and chats about losing hybrid working arrangements, and one group launched an online petition urging Dimon to reconsider. Unions - NOPE - Amazon workers at a facility near Raleigh, North Carolina, overwhelmingly voted against unionizing on Saturday. - Of the 3,276 ballots cast, there were 2,447 votes opposing the union and 829 in favor, according to Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE), the group seeking to represent workers. The results still need to be certified by the National Labor Relations Board. China - Tariffs of their own - China's finance ministry said Tuesday it will impose 15% tariffs on coal and liquified natural gas imports from the U.S. and 10% duties on crude oil, farm equipment and certain cars, starting Feb. 10. - The tariffs announcement comes as the additional 10% U.S. tariffs on Chinese exports came into effect on Tuesday stateside. Speaking of Tariffs Reciprocal Tariffs - what are they? . Essentially, it's a "tit-for-tat" approach to trade: if Country A charges a 10% tariff on goods from Country B, then Country B will impose a 10% tariff on goods from Country A - President Trump recently signed a memorandum directing...

Wax off Wax On - Waffling - Mr. Miyagi President? Government Cuts - Lots of Bye-Bye Notes. Economics and the latest employment report. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - Wax off Wax On - Waffling - Mr. Miyagi President? - Government Cuts - Lots of Bye-Bye Notes - Economics are in.... People happy and not happy - Musk - let's talk about this .... - Praying for the turtles... Markets - Lots of Tumult  - confusion but still a retail bid - Inflation numbers are not worrying (to some) - Employment Report - CPI Due this week - Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum The Karate Kid: Danielson - Wax On Wax off - Trump 2.0: President Miyagi: tariffs on, tariffs off (used to be called waffling) - Mexico and Canada Tarrifs are postponed for a month after "phone calls" from Trudeau and Sheinbaum - China 10% tariffs and now China retaliates --- Supposedly there is a call set up between Trump and XI in the next few days Economics - ADP: Private sector companies added more jobs than expected in January -- Companies created a net 183,000 jobs on the month, slightly more than the 176,000 in December ---Pay for workers who stayed in their jobs grew at a 4.7% annual rate - BLS Payrolls: 143k Added,  (shy of estimates) ---- URate 4% ----Avg Hourly Earnings kick up to 0.5% MoM - - - UMICH for Feb -  67.8 (DOWN from 70.1 - ISM Serices 52.8, down slightly from prior month Color on Confidence numbers - Lots of concern over the potential for inflation in the UMich report --- Biggest issue is the worry about the tariffs and how they may impact prices Earnings: - The S&P 500 is reporting a 13.2% year-over-year earnings growth rate for Q4 2024, which is the highest growth rate reported in three years - 77% of S&P 500 companies have reported earnings above estimates, which is equal to the 5-year average but above the 10-year average - The Financials, Communication Services, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary, and Utilities sectors are reporting double-digit earnings growth - Starting to seeing some issues in the BIG tech sector - that is why all of a sudden we are also seeing layoffs - expense cutting (although no cuts to cap ex at this point) Earnings - Amazon prelim Q4 $1.86 vs $1.49 FactSet Consensus; revs $187.79 mln vs $187.31 bln FactSet Consensus - AWS segment sales rose 18.9% yr/yr to $28.79 bln - Q4 operating income of $21.2 bln vs prior guidance of $16-20 bln; guides to Q1 operating income of $14-18 bln - Amazon sees Q1 revs $151.0-155.5 bln vs $158.56 bln FactSet Consensus ----Amazon expects $100 billion of capex in 2025 on 'once-in-a-lifetime' AI opportunity More Earnings - Alphabet shares fell more than 9% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company reported fourth-quarter results that missed on revenue expectations and announced more artificial intelligence investments. - Earnings per share for the Google parent company beat analysts' estimates by two cents. - Revenue: $96.47 billion vs. $96.56 billion expected by LSEG - Earnings per share: $2.15 vs. $2.13 expected by LSEG Even More Earnings - Advanced Micro Devices reported fourth-quarter results on Tuesday that beat Wall Street expectations for sales and earnings, but the stock fell about 5% in extended trading as the company missed estimates in its key data center segment. - Stock kept of falling in the days after too... - Earnings per share: $1.09, adjusted, versus $1.08 expected - Revenue: $7.66 billion versus $7.53 billion --- Clearly this company was way ahead of itself and proposing that they had AI chips that were potentially competitive to NVDA - BUT NOT! Spotify

January is in the books - interesting outcome. Let's work at Costco - wow! Fed is out with their rate plan - not confident in the future Fed Workers getting buyouts 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - January is in the books - interesting outcome - Let's work at Costco - wow! - Fed is out with their rate plan - not confident in the future - Fed Workers getting buyouts - The latest from the Just Kidding department... Markets - Investors Betting Trump will soften his stance on Tariffs - Trump playing chicken on weekends that other countries will bend - Some recovery after last Monday's beating - But the questions is - how long until global upheaval with all of these threats and bashing? Tariffs - Threats to Canada and Mexico - 25% across the board on Canada and Mexico - 10% in China - Blaming immigration, drugs and trade imbalance --- Oil could become an issue with Canada as they send us cheaper (dirty crude) - but several regions could see higher prices by 20% if these tariffs stick - After the close - Trump said at the White House Friday he would 'absolutely' put tariffs on the nation's EU allies. - 'You want the truthful answer or should I give you a political answer?' Trump said when asked about it – underlying his commitment to the issue. He said the tariffs on the EU would be 'very substantial,' without providing details. - Markets closed in the red Friday on this tidbit -------- Follow up - futures and markets off considerably before the open on Monday. 2%+ across the board. Oil UP. -------THEN - A PHONE CALL WITH MEXICO! PAUSE ON RATES FOR A MONTH (10am news) Bitcoin

The Impact of Flagrant Braggadociousness Hard rug pull? Tariffs - giving out like candy TikTok Saga continues - with a twist 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - The Impact of Flagrant Braggadociousness - Hard rug pull? - Tariffs - giving out like candy - TikTok Saga continues - with a twist Markets - Deflating Stocks - Thread Pull (Before the rug pull) - Monday Mayhem - S&P 500 down 1.9%, Equal Weighted down 0.35% - DEEPSeek - Tuesday - plenty of buyers stepping in .... - Staples, Banks are in favor all of a sudden... ANNOUNCING a New CTP! $600 Billion Lost Monday - for one company! BIGGEST one day drop ever! Monday Markets - News of a cheap AI model (program/app) from China hit the tape and it pulled the loose string and tech / markets felll apart. - DeepSeek, has more downloads that ChatCPT - DeepSeek's latest app comes just days after Mr. Trump announced a new $500 billion venture with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle, dubbed Stargate, which he touted as ensuring "the future of technology" in the U.S. (Which is higher than anyone could calulate as the actual value- more like $60-$80 billion) - ORCL -13%, NVDA -17%, AMD -7%, ASML - 8%. Nuke power companies getting squashed - NASDAQ 100 down 3.2% - DeepSeek is also catching investors off guard because of the low development costs for its AI app, which Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives pegged at only $6 million. By comparison, OpenAI, Google and other major U.S. companies are on track to invest a total of roughly $1 trillion in AI over the coming years, according to Goldman Sachs. - FWIW - DeepSeek excels in technical tasks like coding and reasoning, while ChatGPT is better for creative writing and conversational tasks - Founder Liang, who had previously focused on applying AI to investing, had bought a "stockpile of Nvidia A100 chips," a type of tech that is now banned from export to China. Those chips became the basis of DeepSeek, an MIT publication reported. - DeepSeek is looking to differentiate from its competitors with its reasoning capabilities, meaning that before delivering the final answer, the model first generates a “chain of thought” to enhance the accuracy of its responses. - Question: Will this shed reality on the AI bubble or just a bump in the road? ---- Lesson: As an investor, be careful of the current administration's hype - we saw this last time and many of the "deals" never got done fully or at all. ---- In addition, DJIA was flying high as staples and other ramping. HD, CRM, JNJ - 10Yr Yield drops to 4.52% Hard Rug Pull - Hard rug pull: The developers have no intention of completing the project and plan to scam investors from the start In the End... - The narrative with switch... Was:  How great all of this as capital spend is going to be great! - Will morph to: No need for capital spend therefore companies will have the benefit of not spending the money! - The usual Wall Street Machine --- Update: That has already started in the background. The idea that this is great as there is more competition AND a layer has been built that can support faster and cheaper build out of this AI ..... One More Thing - Wang (CEO of ScaleAI) said DeepSeek actually has more H100 chips from Nvidia than expected — about 50,000 of them. - At $25,000 a piece that is $1.25 billion. Sooooooo how is it that it took only $6 million to build.. Big Cuts - The Trump administration is offering millions of federal workers the option to accept buyouts through a government-wide "deferred resignation" program if they resign by Feb. 6. - Those who accept the offer will receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30,

Trump-o-Nomics here we come. MemeCoins making s comeback - then fizzling. Pardons and Executive orders are flying. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter  *** California Clean up - Some thoughts and companies... **** Warm-Up - New President - New Leadership - Pardons flying....Even preemptive ones - Another short-seller is out of biz... - Talking bout animal spirits being unlocked as President Trump take office Markets - Coins - on fire (then pull back) - Markets - Moving after last week's CPI print - MemeCoins making a comeback - Pelosi moving stocks ** Need a new symbol for the 1st CTP for 2025 PSA - Quick note - Next week's guest on TDI Podcast - Howard Lindzon - Founder of StockTwits - Follow JCD and AH on Twitter - Listen to No Agenda every week - double the pleasure on Thursdays and Sundays at 2P (ET) Inauguration - Any major takeaways? - Trump wearing a purple tie - that does not seem like an accident - Significant number of executive orders First orders of business--- Energy is key area along with DEI, TWO Genders (only), Temporary pause on China tariffs, National emergency at borders, ending EV mandates - National emergency: Borger, energy - "That national energy emergency will unlock a variety of different authorities that will enable our nation to quickly build again, to produce more natural resources, to create jobs, to create prosperity and to strengthen our nation's national security" - Opening up Alaska: "Alaska is so key for our national security, given its geostrategic location, and it's a crucial place from which we could export LNG not only to other parts of the United States, but to our friends and allies in the Asia Pacific region" - DEI -could now be DOA - Withdrawing from Paris clime agreement - - - The incoming administration plans to review and potentially end what the official described as "discriminatory programs," including environmental justice grants and diversity training initiatives. --- Retaking Panama Canal and plant a flag on Mars -- Do we want to discuss that President Trump did not put his hand on the bible as he was being sworn in? ----EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE: For this purpose, we are establishing the external revenue service to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources, the American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before to restore competence and effectiveness to our federal government - Vivek Ramaswamy is out as Elon Musk's co-leader as he is running for Governor of Ohio Pre-Emtiove Pardons - President Joe Biden on Monday issued preemptive pardons for several family members, citing concerns that they will be targeted by “baseless and politically motivated investigations.” - Biden pardoned his brother, James Biden; James' wife, Sara Jones Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens; Owens' husband, John Owens; and his other brother, Francis Biden. - “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a press release. --- AND January 6th "Hostages" pardoned Tariffs - Seems that the squeeze is on - 25% on Mexico (MexAmerica) and Canada (CanAmerica) starting Feb 1st. - HOT FLASH - 10% on China starting Feb 1 Musk - Feelings hurt? - Removing of EV mandates - not in his best interest.. Right? - Could it be a swap for more lucrative defense and space contracts? TikTok - Goes dark for a little while over he weekend (Apple, Google remove app and offline on web)

People are catching on - Fed has no clue Investors are nervous - lots of intraday volatility Correction - could it be? USA- Going DEEPER into debt DOGE - already making excuses 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - People are catching on - Fed has no clue - Investors are nervous - lots of intraday volatility - Correction - could it be? - USA- Going DEEPER into debt - DOGE - already making excuses - Next Monday - Market Holiday and Inauguration day Markets - No happy - inflation and jobs (A 1-2 Punch for markets) - CPI and PPI this week - make it or break it? - Rates hitting key resistance - Oil spikes - multi-month high All of a sudden.. - Microsoft, Facebook and other companies are cutting staff again - Talk of tough year ahead... What is up? If they don't cooperate? - Cut their pay! - China is set to slash pay for staff at its top three financial regulators, including the central bank, by about half, as part of a regulatory revamp unveiled in 2023 to bring their salaries in line with other civil servants - Starting from this month, staff at the People's Bank of China (PBOC), National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) and China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) will see total income slashed by about half. More China - Pull Forward - China's trade data in December beat expectations by a large margin, with exporters continuing to frontload shipments as worries over additional tariffs mount, while the country's stimulus measures appear to be supporting demand in the industrial sector. - Can it last? Let's Talk Turkey - Fed has no idea what is going on - They simply can move markets, (equity and fixed income) by liquefying markets - HOPE that they have the general trend and can regulate the flow so not overheat or overcool - In reality, their forecasting tools are crap --- BUT, focus on what they do, not what they say or their outlook Employment Numbers - Summary: Nonfarm payrolls increased by a stronger-than-expected 256,000, the unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2%, average hourly earnings growth year-over-year was a sturdy 3.9%, and more people were employed. - Much better than anticipated ! - Unemployment rate drops - So, we see higher prices and better employment - markets spooked that Fed out of touch - One-Two punch for equities Result - Steepening yield curve Market Sell-off - NASDAQ 100 off 6% from the highs - Big names down more (NVDA 13%, Tesla 18%, Apple 10%, NFLX 10%) - SOOOO - Big Cap Tech is in a correction and dragging down markets - Markets are in the RED for the year and unchanged/under the pre-election day move. - More speculative (runners) stocks are down even more... Quantum Stocks - DUH! - Sell-off deepened as Zuck cautioned that the potential is still years (and years) away (on Joe Rogan Show) --- Zuck looking like he wants to follow in Elon's footsteps Quantum Stocks More Zuck - Bashing Apple... - No innovation, random rules - "So how are they making more money as a company? Well, they do it by basically, like, squeezing people, and, like you're saying, having this 30% tax on developers by getting you to buy more peripherals and things that plug into it," Zuckerberg said. "You know, they build stuff like Air Pods, which are cool, but they've just thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way." Oh - and this... - Meta on Friday told employees that its plans to end a number of internal programs designed to increase the company's hiring of diverse candidates, the latest dramatic change ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's second Wh...

Grinch Ending .... No Santa Rally CTP Results are IN! Close race Cocktails -> Cancerous now 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - Grinch Ending .... No Santa Rally - CTP Results are IN! Close race - Cocktails -> Cancerous now - New rules for medical bill deadbeats - Markets - Poor end of year - hard hit by Grinch - killed Santa Rally - Gym parking Lots - Resolutions for January - Yields starting to becom a problem - CME Fed Funds Futures --> No CUT MAN!   Market Update - December Market Update Sector Update January Markets - As expected, the start of the year is typically a time when people make resolutions they hope to keep. - In the finance world, we often hear about returning to discipline, cutting losers, adding to winners, and adhering to all the fundamental rules. - Additionally, at this time of year, investors may consider becoming more aggressive, less aggressive, more diversified, or investing in last year's winning stocks. - These thoughts and actions contribute to market volatility, which usually fades away within a couple of months when resolutions are forgotten ---- Much like how the parking lots at local gyms are packed every January, but plenty of spots open up by March. Big Issue - The big issue we need to focus on now is the continuing increase in rates as the 10-year Treasury yield has now breached a key resistance level of 4.6%, which is significant. - There are several reasons for this move, but the simple facts are that the economy is still growing and prices are on the rise. ISM Report - Not Helping (From Briefing.com) - The ISM Services PMI increased to 54.1% in December (Briefing.com consensus 53.0%) from 52.1% in November. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%, so the December reading reflects services sector activity accelerating from November. - The key takeaway from the report is that it was a double-whammy for rate cut expectations in that the expansion in services sector activity accelerated while the prices index picked up noticeably, printing its first reading above 60.0% since January 2024. • The Business Activity/Production Index increased to 58.2% from 53.7%. • The New Orders Index bumped up to 54.2% from 53.7%. • The Employment Index dipped to 51.4% from 51.5%. • The Prices Index jumped to 64.4% from 58.2%. • The Supplier Deliveries Index rose to 52.5% from 49.5%. • The Backlog of Orders Index fell to 44.3% from 47.1%. No Cuts for A While - With prices on the rise and the economy in good shape... CME Fed Funds Nat Gas! - Natural gas futures prices surged last Monday, hitting a new 52-week high following reports of a colder-than-usual temperature outlook for January. - Natural gas February futures rose around 15% during the session after an updated outlook by The Weather Co. and Atmospheric G2 released Sunday showed that the temperature forecast for next month is expected to be colder than average in the East, specifically from Florida to Maine as well as certain parts of the Great Lakes. - POLAR VORTEX? - Already prices are fading.... Booze Bummer - The U.S. surgeon general issued a new advisory warning Friday about the link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk, and pushed for policy changes to help reduce the number of alcohol-related cancers. - U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said there is a "well-established" link between drinking alcohol and at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colorectum, esophagus and liver. For cancers including breast, mouth and throat cancers, increased risk may start around one or fewer drinks per day, according to his office.

Another year is in the record books.... Let's   not forget about the not-so boring election, Hacks, beached and outages and PEAK NVDA! 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign...   Checking out the early CTP Cup Standings   HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? 2024 - DH Closest to The Pin Cup - Up and Running   Winners will be getting great stuff like the new DHUnplugged Shirts (Designed by Jimbo) - PLUS a one-of-a-kind DHUnplugged CTP Winner's certificate..   FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS   See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Shutdown..... AVERTED Mergers - Auto Industry big move Lots of Trump Talk The Market's new favorite stocks 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign... Warm-Up - Shutdown..... AVERTED - Mergers - Auto Industry big move - Lots of Trump Talk - Deli Stock Scheme - Update - Holiday Tidings! - Markets - S&P 500 Equal weight down 6% MTD, Small Caps down 8% - The New favs? Quantum Computing Stocks - Santa Like them..... - Index inclusion has become a thing Checking out the early CTP Cup Standings EVERYONE IS IN! - 7 Contestants.... Fed Meeting Dec 18th - Fed freaked out markets - All of a sudden they are projecting that inflation is not going to come down to their 2% level into 2026 - DJIA was donw 1000 points and it was an ugly day overall. - Onc day later, PCE comes out not too far aay from assumptions and market takes off - Just goes to show that DJIA - Records? - Follow up - it was 10 days and the last time that happened was 1974 Meanwhile - XMAS Rally - Once big day down, then a test and BOUNCE - Most of the Fed Day losses have been wipe out - still much damage in December --- Once again - Mega cap holding things up ---- EVEN though 10Yr >4.6%  - this is an important price point... Failed  couple of times before. Quantum Computing Stocks - Ever since Alphabet (Google) announced that they made progress, been some crazy moves on a few names - with YTD returns -- D-Wave Quantum Inc  QBTS  (825%) -- Rigetti Computing Inc   RGTI  (1,050%) -- Quantum Computing Inc   QUBT  (1,900%) -- Defiance Quantum ETF   QTUM (51%) -- IONQ Inc    IONQ   (240%) ---(none seem to be making any money  - actually losing a ton) More Quantum - Willow's speed is almost incomprehensible — according to Google, it's able to perform a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today's fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years to solve. Ten septillion is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. - Concern has turned to the potential for this technology to break down crypto (or other) cryptography. --- It may take years - but this could be something we need to watch as a byproduct, the need for better security from quantum hacks Auto Merger - Japanese automakers Nissan and Honda on Monday announced they had entered into official talks to merge and create the world's third-largest automaker by sales. - The deal would aim to share intelligence and resources and deliver economies of scale and synergies while protecting both brands - Nissan's strategic partner Mitsubishi has been offered the chance to join the new group and will take a decision by the end of January 2025. - Lots of things to iron out before this deal gets done Index Traders - Hang on... - Huge moves to reset these days - Companies are competing to get to NASDAQ and NYSE to gain inclusion as they know share prices will potentially pop - Palatntir is banking on that as they said in their recent announcement and one reason was to get inclusion in the NASDAQ 100 - These kind of index changes has buig impacts on stocks - - ALSO, there should be some movement over the next month as there will be re-balancing going on as 2024 big run for markets/stocks Trump Talk/Plans - Trump said he will not let the canal fall into the 'wrong hands' - Trump accused Panama of charging excessive fees to use the canal - Panama's President Mulino defends canal's independence and fees - US handed over control of the canal in 1999 - Talk that we could take it back - Twitter: "Every square meter of the Panama Canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will c...

Kissing Ass is good for the wallet Fed is about to meet and make a rate decision Time's Person of the Year! Whistleblower found dead 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign... Warm-Up - Kissing Ass is good for the wallet - Fed is about to meet and make a rate decision - Person of the Year! - Whistleblower found dead - Markets - Odd - DJIA down for 7 days, NASDAQ can't be stopped (TSLA pushing this time - once again a reason to look at market cap weightings) - Fanning the flames - A new name into NASDAQ 100 - Earnings - A few interesting data points - Social Security benefits increase - Yes and No, Inflation and No Inflation - Not since... 2018 or 1978? Reminder -  the CTP Contestants for 2024 CTP Cup Michael Bowling Kirk Saathoff Eric Harvey Chad Laajala Tim Dewey Paul Kinder Anson Brady (2023 CTP Cup Winner) ---Emails have gone out... Fed Meeting Dec 18th - 89% probability of a 0.25% rate cut - Fed has its back to the wall - markets are dictating - No reason to believe that they need a cut, although the would not want to worry markets or surprise them in any way - All reporting shows that they will do the cut, back off a little as to the amount of potential cuts coming in recognition of the fact that the economy is still running well DJIA - Records? - The DJIA has been down for 8 days in a row and that has not happened since 2018. - If the DJIA declines today, that would take us back to the 1970's, 1978 to be exact when there was a 9 day decline. - But, that is the DJIA, the NASDAQ an SP500 have been holding up. - Moreover, the fall for the DJIA this month is less that 3%, so not much damage done to the index itself. Another Sinkhole Warning - SP500 equal weighted is down more than 3% for the MTD. - SP500 up slightly MTD - NASDAQ 100 up moer than 5% - Small-caps down 3% BUT - Wait.... - A measure of wholesale price rose more than expected in November, adding fuel to the belief that progress in bringing down inflation has slowed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. - On an annual basis, PPI rose 3%, the biggest advance since February 2023. - This is after an inline CPI number. - Rates are on the rise for bonds, as expected --- Mark this date - inflation could make a comeback in 2025 and totally offside the fed (And they are fanning the flames ) AND Consumers are Spending - November Retail Sales 0.7% vs. 0.5% consensus; prior revised to 0.5% from 0.4% But - ISM Composite - Rolling Over ISM Composite CHIPS - Shares of Broadcom popped more than 21% Friday morning, pushing the company's market cap beyond $1 trillion for the first time. It will be Broadcom's best trading day on record if the move holds until the closing bell. The move comes after the company reported fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street's expectations for earnings and showed strong artificial intelligence revenue growth. - Broadcom reported $14.05 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, up 51% year over year but shy of the $14.09 billion expected by analysts according to LSEG. In Broadcom's semiconductor solutions group, which includes its AI chips, revenue increased 12% to $8.23 billion from $8.03 billion a year ago. More Chips - US planning on restricting AI  Chips around the world - Planning on closing China's backdoor access -Washington plans rules limiting semiconductor shipments to some countries accused of supplying Beijing - NVDA, MSFT, GOOG, GOOGL, AMD, INTC, SMH Nuclear - getting some traction - SMRs - Small Nuclear Reactors - Small modular reactors,

Big - Run - Crypto Pops and Drops Stacking the Admin with $$$ Peeps HUGE Baseball Deal Equifax Class Action - Finally a payout? PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign... Warm-Up - Big - Run - Crypto Pops and Drops - Stacking the Admin with $$$ Peeps - Baseball Deal - Equifax Class Action - Finally a payout? Markets - Employment Report - This week's CPI and PPI Data - Santa Rally - Could be just be a couple weeks away - - Trump Limericks (AI) ANNOUNCING the CTP Contestants for 2024 CTP Cup Michael Bowling Kirk Saathoff Eric Harvey Chad Laajala Tim Dewey Paul Kinder Anson Brady (2023 CTP Cup Winner) ---Emails have gone out... Regarding AMD - BofA Securities downgraded Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to Neutral from Buy, lower CY25/26 pf-EPS by 6%/8%ta $4.43/55.51, about -13%/-23% below consensus 55.09/57.11. Two factors: 1) Higher competitive risks in Al against best-of-breed NVDA's dominance, and growing cloud preference for custom chips from MRVL/AVGO. limiting AMD's market share gain potential, and 2) Potential for 1H'25E PC processor correction, after ~4O% HoH surge in AMD's 2H'24E client PC sales.  Shares are down 3%. Oracle Earnings - Oracle (ORCL -8%) is lower following its Q2 (Nov) earnings report last night. - The company reported a slight EPS miss, its second miss in the past three quarters. - Revenue rose 8.6% yr/yr to $14.06 bln, but that was also a bit light of analyst expectations. - The Q3 (Feb) adjusted EPS guidance of $1.47-1.51 was also lower than expected. - Oracle guided to Q3 revs of +7-9% (+9-11% CC), which we compute as $14.21-14.48 bln, which was also light, partly due to FX. Google Chip - Releases the Willow quantum computing chip - Google has unveiled a new chip which it claims takes five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world's fastest super computers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete. - However experts say Willow is, for now, a largely experimental device, meaning a quantum computer powerful enough to solve a wide range of real-world problems is still years - and billions of dollars - away. MLB Deal - The Mets on Sunday agreed to sign Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract, multiple sources said, by far the largest pact in Major League Baseball history. - The deal, which the Mets have not confirmed because it's pending a physical, contains a $75 million signing bonus, an opt-out after five seasons and no deferred money. - The Mets will have the ability to void Soto's opt-out clause after the 2029 season if they boost the average annual value of the final 10 years of his deal from $51 million to $55 million, according to a source. - In that case, the overall deal would be for 15 years and $805 million - Right and Left Fielder - with .288 Batting average - In 2024, he hit 41 homers and had 129 walks. It was his fourth season with at least 25 home runs and 125 walks. That's fourth-most in MLB history, behind only Barry Bonds (10 such seasons), Babe Ruth (10) and Ted Williams (eight). China - Back in the Spotlight - Disinflation again and profits slowing - China's inflation drops - China's producer price index declined for the 26th month. Producer inflation fell by 2.5% year on year in November... - Sunday announcement - China's leaders on Monday pledged "more proactive" fiscal measures and "moderately" looser monetary policy next year to boost domestic consumption, according to an official readout of a key policy meeting that outlined upcoming economic priorities.

Very Business friendly cabinet Market rotation continues - now it is back into the big-caps Consumers - WOW! - Spend Spend Spend Black Friday and Cyber Monday updates 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign... Warm-Up - Very Business friendly cabinet - Market rotation continues - now it is back into the big-caps - Consumers - WOW! - Spend Spend Spend - Black Friday and Cyber Monday updates Markets - November - the best month of the year! - New highs and predictions for a 5% December - USD is on the rise - bond yields ease. - Bitcoin can't seem to breach $100k ANNOUNCING the CTP Contestants for 2024 CTP Cup Michael Bowling Kirk Saathoff Eric Harvey Chad Laajala Tim Dewey Paul Kinder Anson Brady (2023 CTP Cup Winner) Saying goodbye to legend - Art Cashin - Pillar of the exchange - He was on the TDI Podcast - LINK Marshall Law - South Korean President Yoon declares martial law: - Says through martial law he will rebuild a free and democratic country - Government administration has been paralyzed because of opposition party conducts - Says he will eradicate pro-North forces and protect constitutional order - Marshall Law lifted - but a good amount of confusion remains Consumers on a Rampage - Adobe said that in the U.S., consumers made a record-breaking $10.8 billion of purchases, up 10.2% on last year. - Cyber Monday sales reached $13.5 bln, ahead of initial expectations - Quick Amazon vs Costco Story - Looking for UPS backup - Same model on Amazon (Cyber Monday Deal) $179 - Costco $129 - Buy now, pay later plans helped finance purchases, driving 8.8% more in online spend than last year - But... Not so much IN-STORE: Overall, store traffic on Black Friday was down 3.2%, with footfall down 7% in the Midwest, 2.1% in the Northeast, 3.5% in the South and 3.2% in the West Retail - Consumer discretionary stocks are on fire - People are buying - alot of stuff - Abercrombie & Fitch issued strong holiday guidance last week after posting its sixth straight quarter of double-digit sales growth and another quarter of results that topped expectations. - Gap issued good guidance as well - RTH ETF - (Retail) all time high (Amazon, Costco, Home Depot, WalMart etc) On the Other hand.... - Electronics provider Best Buy on Tuesday cut its full-year sales forecast as it missed Wall Street's quarterly revenue expectations and a fresh batch of iPhones and AI-enabled laptops weren't enough to drive higher sales. - The consumer electronics retailer said it now expects full-year revenue to range from $41.1 billion to $41.5 billion, compared to prior guidance of $41.3 billion to $41.9 billion. - It expects full-year comparable sales to decline by between 2.5% and 3.5%, compared to its prior expectations of a 1.5% to 3% drop. Year Top Date Scorecard S&P Sector Scorecard AI - Amazon announced it would invest an additional $4 billion in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives. - The new funding brings the tech giant's total investment to $8 billion, though Amazon will retain its position as a minority investor, according to Anthropic, the San Francisco-based startup behind the Claude chatbot and AI model. - Amazon Web Services will also become Anthropic's "primary cloud and training partner," - Amazon does not have a seat on Anthropic's board. AI - Immigration - A signature campaign promise of President-elect Donald Trump is to initiate mass deportations of undocumented residents of the United States. - At a Sept. 12 campaign stop in Tucson, Arizona,

Where are all the smokers these days? DOGE - making promises. We are all turkeys - just gullible for every comment and promise. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? OHHH - the new shirt design is coming along... Twitter - How you like the AI generated cover art? (May need to come to DHUnplugged to see all) Warm-Up - Where are all the smokers these days? - DOGE - making promises - High level indictment - We are all turkeys - just gullible for every comment and promise Markets -#endthefed making the rounds - Treasury Secretary? - Target earnings surprise - Black Friday - will that boost retail? - New Phrase - Mullet Market Thanksgiving - What is going to be on the Dvorak table? ANNOUNCING the CTP Winner for Carvana Mullet Market - No, the fish... - Steady benchmarks in the front, crypto party in the back Netflix Again - Netflix notches 70 million monthly active users on ad-supported plan - 250 million subs and 70 million on ad plan - Didn't we used to call this TV? Made a full circle except that ad-based also has a monthly fee - Over 50% of the new sign ups are ads based plans Smokers - Retail cigarette sales in China have been growing for the past 4 years, reaching 2.44 trillion sticks in 2023, data from Euromonitor showed. The research group forecasts that sales will continue to increase annually, hitting 2.48 trillion by 2028. - Euromonitor added that growth has coincided with the increasing popularity of "slim" cigarettes, often advertised as "low-tar," and various types of flavored cigarettes. - Between 2019 and 2023, annual worldwide sales of cigarette sticks fell by about 2.7% to 5.18 trillion, according to Euromonitor data. At more than 300 million, China has the most cigarette smokers in the world, making up nearly a third of the world's total smokers, according to the World Health Organization. Topic of Discussion - #endthefed - Do you think that Musk and Trump and the new gang will try to end the Fed? - Elon endorsed the idea of the President being able to intervene on monetary policy. - Seems like that will undermine the independence and then the confidence in the Fed -- Going to be some fireworks with Powell saying he will not resign and cannot be fired DOGE - Dept of Government Efficiency - Still a hardy har name - like saying Penis when in 3rd grade - Incoming Department of Government Efficiency wants to create new mobile application for Americans to file taxes for free with IRS, according to Washington Post (Intuit and HR Block down on this...) - Explain how a government agency that does not exist is making these kinds of statements. --- Thought: Make these statements and either buy or short stocks? (Again we are all turkeys - hopefully not going to be led to slaughter) Higher rates - Rates are running higher after the election - actually up to the election ran up from 3.6% to 4.6% and nor in the range - DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said Thursday interest rates could shoot higher as the Republicans ended up controlling the House, securing a governing trifecta that gives President-elect Donald Trump free rein to spend as he pleases. - Pre-election: "If the House goes to Republicans, there's going to be a lot of debt, there's going to be higher interest rates at the long end, and it'll be interesting to see how the Fed reacts to that," Gundlach said - If the Trump administration extends the 2017 tax cuts or introduces new reductions, it could add significant amount to the nation's debt in the next few years, worsening the already troublesome fiscal picture. Yeah Right.... - Vocal critic of Putin, Vladimir Shklyarov, 39,

Wild ride for markets - election movers and groovers. Fed dousing the fire a bit. Inflation is still a thing. Nuke talk again.... 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? OHHH - the new shirt design is coming along... Warm-Up - Up and Down - Election Confusing Markets - What a wild ride - more to come - CTP for Carvana will be closing out this coming Friday and that is it for 2024 - CTP Cup comes in December - More hacks that no one cares about - Another big bankruptcy - Nuke talks again Markets - Up and down - shine off that penny? - Every pick / comment brings on new move - Fed pours some cold water on markets - Inflation - still a thing - Something happening - only happened a few times in history ANNOUNCEMENT : AH - Chili Competition Results - 3rd Place Netflix - Jake Paul (27) and Mike Tyson (58) - 60 million people "tried" to watch - Glitches - system overload - Jake Paul took it in a 8 round decision. - Can you imagine if Netflix starts doing these live events with a $1 charge? - Jake Paul got $40M and Tyson got $20M Follow Up - Palantir - Jumps after earnings and then announcing move to NASDAQ (Nov 26) - As of last Friday - #1 performer in S&P 500 this year - Up 48% MTD and 250% YTD - Big move Friday was because it will qualify for NAZ 100 (QQQ) and lots of buying will need to be done - Good for Peter: Thiel's Palantir holdings have increased in value by about $3.2 billion since the earnings report and $2 billion since the election. Once Hot -Now Not - Here is company that we had for clients -bought low, sold higher, bought some more higher, sold on way down - Super Micro - SMCI - was a darling for some time - then a few short sellers attacked - stock sold off - Company decided to follow the other guys with 10-1 stock spilts - stock was as high as $1,200 per share pre split- now??? $21.75 ($217.50 comparable) - Could be kicked out of NASDAQ - Short -Sellers couldbe right - Super Micro is late in filing its 2024 year-end report with the SEC, and has yet to replace its accounting firm. --- UPDATE - Super Micro Computer secures BDO USA as lead auditor, targets key filings by early 2025 amid NASDAQ approval process (Stock up 25%) Markets - Not Often Seen - The stock market has done this only three times since January 1871 - The Shiller P/E ratio has reached a reading of 38 only three times during a bull market rally in 153 years. In December 1999, during the dot-com boom, the Shiller P/E peaked at a reading of 44.19. Meanwhile, in the first week of 2022, it very briefly lifted above 40. - On most occasions, this heat needs to be cooled... It could take time as this is a slow moving ratio/indicator - Another point - only a few times in history have we seen a market up 20% - 2 consecutive years. --- Will it continue? History shows that this needs to cool off too - but that does not mean a crash is imminent. More Cooling - Russell 2000 was HOT right after the election. - Day after it was up like 5%+++ - Last week, down 4% Hack'd - Hackers linked to a Chinese intelligence agency were able to breach T-Mobile as part of a months-long campaign to spy on the cellphone communications of high-value intelligence targets - Last Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. cyber watchdog agency CISA said China-linked hackers have intercepted surveillance data intended for American law enforcement agencies after breaking into an unspecified number of telecom companies. - Earlier in October, the Journal reported that Chinese hackers accessed the networks of U.S. broadband providers, including Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies,

Looking back at some of the funnier and more memorable episodes. Focusing n a few specific topics from years ago. Thank you Ryan for putting this together. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? OHHH - the new shirt design is coming along... Thanks again to the great Ryan Rediske for putting this episode together! This is a DH Unplugged chronicle of the rise and fall of the Facebook initial public offering; a cautionary tale of hubris and hype that ended with chaos, panic and scandal. Episode 139, February 7th, 2012, the Facebook IPO is announced with great expectations. John C Dvorak, our tech hero, makes two courageous and bold predictions. Andrew Horowitz, our financial wizard, combines his unmatched insight with his extensive analysis skills to summarize the fundamentals. April 11th, Facebook buys Instagram. John mentions a lost opportunity and Andrew questions the logic. May 3rd, The Instagram purchase is analyzed further. Begun, the patent wars have. May 10th, Facebook alters their S1. Pray they do not alter the deal further. John announces special Facebook Friday. Andrew foreshadows with concerns. May 16th, The price rises, the revenue falls. John is cheap faked for humorous effect. Andrew offers sage IPO purchase advice. May 23rd, John admires a Facebook hit piece. Andrew sheds light on some potentially shady underwriting. May 23rd, Andrew shorts Facebook. John lavishes him with praise. May 30th, John predicts law suits. Andrew senses foul play and greed. August 1st, Facebook stock plays limbo; how low can they go? Guess who they blame? September 5th, A major firm downgrades Facebook and Andrew predicts a short squeeze. October 10th, Facebook makes the cover of Barons.   We join our heroes in the spring of 2011, discussing the potential for round three of the federal reserve's quantitative easing program to buy bonds and lower interest rates in an attempt to stimulate the economy. Episode 105, April 14th, Morgan Stanley estimates US GDP. John uses the words "bull crap". April 21st, The fed considers doubling down with a mediocre hand. Our dynamic duo sees this for what it really is. May 25th, Andrew displays an exercise in mental acuity. John lands an impressive judo chop. June 22nd, Bernanke to host an unprecedented "ask me anything" for his fans. Will it work? August 3rd, John shares his take. Andrew asks an important question about QE3. August 10th, Andrew analyzes an unexpected outcome. John says "interesting". September 21st, Our beloved hosts argue about the origin of twist and shout. John refrains from using the word scam. Episode 142, February 29th, 2012, Andrew finds a curious correlation. John offers a heartfelt apology. To himself. June 13th, Quantitative easing efficacy is questioned. September 5th, Andrew reaffirms Q E 3 still makes no sense. September 19th, John gets an idea. Andrew speculates that the federal reserve indulges in recreational drug use. December 12th, John tells a joke. Andrew says unlimited beer is stupid.     Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? The Closest to The Pin - Carvana (CVNA) Winners will be getting great stuff like the new DHUnplugged Shirts (Designed by Jimbo) - PLUS a one-of-a-kind DHUnplugged CTP Winner's certificate..   FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS   See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Can we get this election over with already? Markets pricing in a perfect gridlock scenario. Earnings season rolling along - good and bad news for stocks. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? OHHH - the new shirt design is coming along... Warm-Up - Yields - Highest in months - ahead of Fed decision (tomorrow) - Drones - will they deliver? - October ends on a down note Markets - Optimism (Hysteria) ahead of (final) Election results - Oil on the move again - Middle East tensions - Mixed results from earnings - but still a generally good look for the main players - What does Berkshire know? - Big DJIA Announcement AH - Chili Competition this weekend - reining champion - have to defend the title... Employment Situation - ADP said private companies hired 233,000 new workers in the month, better than the upwardly revised 159,000 in September and far ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for 113,000. - Nonfarm payrolls were up just 12,000 in October (Briefing.com consensus 120,000) - Nonfarm private payrolls decreased by 28,000 (Briefing.com consensus 105,000) -- These numbers were depressed by the Boeing strike and likely by the effects of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, yet with forecasts suggesting those influences could lop off something on the order of 100,000 positions, the view to October, coupled with sizable downward revisions to the August and September payroll figures, connotes softness in hiring activity. - Unemployment rate stood at 4.1% - no change US GDP - Gross domestic product increased at a 2.8% annualized rate in the third quarter, below the 3.1% estimate and the 3.0% reading Q2. - Consumer spending and federal government outlays were two of the biggest contributors to GDP growth. - The release comes with the Federal Reserve poised to lower interest rates further despite the seemingly strong economy and inflation that remains above target. Palantir Earnings -Back-to-back quarters delivered beats on its top and bottom lines in Q3 and forecasted upbeat Q4 revenue figures. - PLTR's top line continued to accelerate, advancing by 30% yr/yr to $725.52 mln, supporting its improving profitability, with non-GAAP EPS expanding by 43% yr/yr to $0.10. Total customer count continued to grow nicely, up 39% yr/yr and 6% sequentially to 629. - U.S. government revenue has been ramping up in recent quarters. However, in Q3, the segment took a giant step forward, growing revs by 40% yr/yr and 15% sequentially to $320 mln, a seven-fold increase compared to the prior year and the best growth rate over the past 15 quarters. - The commercial side was the showcase in Q3. Like U.S. government, U.S. commercial revs shifted into a higher gear, registering 54% growth yr/yr, up from the +33% delivered last quarter, to $179 mln AMD Earnings - Just not good enough - AMD reported third-quarter results on Tuesday, with earnings in line with forecasts and revenue that slightly beat expectations. - Here's how the company did, compared to LSEG estimates for the quarter ending Sept. 28: - Earnings per share: 92 cents adjusted vs. 92 cents expected - Revenue: $6.82 billion vs. $6.71 billion expected - AMD said its important data center business doubled in sales for the second quarter in a row, but overall revenue guidance for the fourth quarter was in line with consensus expectations. - Stock down Microsoft Earnings - Microsoft's revenue grew 16% in its fiscal first quarter, faster than analysts had anticipated. - Revenue from Azure and other cloud services was up 33%, surpassing estimates. - Guidance for revenue growth fell short of expectations. Amazon Earnings

Yields important again - rising and worrisome. Hedge Fund titans getting nervous - talking bout a Minsky Moment. End of month - October is about to be in the books. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? OHHH - the new shirt design is coming along... SHHHHH- Leaking some of my own news... eNVESTOLOGY moving to $25,000 minimum in 2025. Currently at $10,000 so if you want to get in to that investment management program with us for the current minimum - now is the time. Warm-Up - Yields important again - all of a sudden - Hedge Fund titans getting nervous - talking bout a Minsky Moment - End of month - October is about to be in the books Markets - Earnings season - Tech is about to bombard us - Gold near highs as China and India buying - Election Direction - putting money where mouth is... - Consumers are happier - UMICH - NAZ 100 - ATH? Yields - On the Move   Yields On The Move Auto Divergence - GM puts out some good numbers for recent quarter. -- GM now expects full-year adjusted EBIT of between $14 billion and $15 billion, or $10 and $10.50 a share, up from between $13 billion and $15 billion, or $9.50 and $10.50. - This marks the third time this year that GM has updated its guidance after beating Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations, led by the automaker's North American operations. -  Ford put out okay numbers, nothing exciting at this point - stock stuck in sideways action - Big differential with stock performance over past year GM/FORD YTD GM/Ford Longer New Threshold for Capital Gains - Starting in 2025, single filers will qualify for the 0% long-term capital gains rate with taxable income of $48,350 or less and married couples filing jointly are eligible with $96,700 or less. - Here is an idea  - for low basis stock - possibly gift to non-dependents that have low income and they can sell at lower capital gains rate --- Cannot do for dependents as their unearned income above $1,300 is the threshold. Consumer Sentiment - October Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment - Final 70.5 vs. 68.9 Briefing.com consensus; October prelim was 68.9 - Markets reacted positively last Friday on this news. ---  Trivia: The University of Michigan (UMich) stopped releasing early versions of its Consumer Sentiment Index (MCSI) in 2013 as part of an agreement with the New York Attorney General's office. The university had previously received around $1 million a year from Thomson Reuters for this information. Hedge fund big boys - Getting nervous - Paul Tudor Jones - The founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment said he was worried that government spending could cause a big sell-off in the bond market, spiking interest rates higher. - Debt unsustainable and people just overlooking it - "Will we have a Minsky moment where all of a sudden there's a point of recognition that what they're talking about is fiscally impossible, financially impossible?” Jones said." - Commented how both candidates are spenders so that is not good - however, hard pressed to think that many of their spending promises will actually go through. Minsky Moment Defined - A Minsky moment is a sudden, catastrophic collapse of asset prices after a period of growth and stability. It's named after American economist Hyman Minsky (1911 to 1996), who believed that markets are inherently unstable and long periods of good markets eventually end in larger crises. - A Minsky moment occurs when excessive debt accumulation becomes unsustainable. Borrowers can no longer meet their debt obligations using their income, leading to a sudden decline in asset prices and a financial crisis.  Housing Market

There are some things we need to know about who is actually buying stocks. Yields on the rise - estimate that they could be moving up to what level? Big tech earnings on tap - how will markets react? 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm-Up - Gold on a tear - not just gen pop buying - Elephants buying up stocks - The BIG reveal - Musk giving away $ - E-Coli Alert Markets - Yields cranking higher - steepening means.... - A bit of profit taking ahead of tech earnings (next week) - More Tax abatements - Markets look a little tired.... Treasury Rates - The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose above 4.11% on Monday as investors awaited a flurry of speeches from Federal Reserve policymakers. - This is a far cry from the lows before the latest rate cut about a month ago. - Elections and debt loads are weighing as are the latest strong economic numbers Yield Curve This too... - The Biden administration rang up a budget deficit topping $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2024, up more than 8% from the previous year and the third highest on record, the Treasury Department said Friday. - The deficit came despite record receipts of $4.9 trillion, which fell well short of outlays of $6.75 trillion. - Government debt has swelled to $35.7 trillion, an increase of $2.3 trillion from the end of fiscal 2023. - Interest expense for the year totaled $1.16 trillion, the first time that figure has topped the trillion-dollar level. (23% of receipts are used for debt service) - The CBO expects deficits to continue to rise, hitting $2.8 trillion by 2034. On the debt side, the office expects it to rise from the current level near 100% of GDP to 122% in 2034. The Big Reveal - The central bank of the Czech Republic added to positions in some of the biggest tech names among U.S.-traded stocks, as well as increasing a bet on Warren Buffett. - Czech National Bank Bought Up Palantir, Nvidia, Apple, and Berkshire Stock - Here is my take.... (Central Banks reporting to other options as they are strapped and backs against the wall. They know they have enough firepower to pump stocks to try to dig themselves out of a death spiral of debt) - Is it legal - yes. Is it good for markets, yes. Is it dangerous? Yes and no - if you can print money - who cares? More... Let's not forget about China rolling out $112 Billion scheme to bolster stocks - China's central bank kicked off two funding schemes on Friday that will initially pump as much as 800 billion yuan ($112.38 billion) into the stock market through newly-created monetary policy tools. - The central bank also launched a relending program, initially worth 300 billion yuan, that would allow financial institutions to borrow from the PBOC to fund share purchases by listed companies or their major shareholders. - 1.75% is the rate to borrow and buy stocks Revealed - Just a quick look.... - The Swiss National Bank has 20% of its assets in equities. - The Bank of Japan buys Japanese ETFs as part of its domestic money market operations, but it doesn't buy foreign stocks. - The Bank of Finland does invest in equities - Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway, buys stocks. - Bank of Finland buys stocks - Last quarter - Norway's gigantic sovereign wealth fund on Tuesday reported third-quarter profit of 835 billion Norwegian kroner ($76.3 billion) - - - To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,760 companies in 71 countries around the world. NO TAXES! - Donald Trump said he'd consider exempting police officers, firefighters, active duty military and veterans from paying taxes - Why not just have no taxes for everyone? --- UPDATE:  Former President Donald Trump's tax r...

Bulls remain in charge Data not important - down the road all will be fine Seasonality - Race to the End CPI and PPI - conflicting 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? This week on TDI Podcast - Patrick O'Hare from Briefing.com Warm-Up - Bulls remain in charge - Data not important - down the road all will be fine - Seasonality - Race to the End - Check the Podcast Cover Design - trying to do all from AI generation through end of year. - Musk pulls a fast one Markets - CPI and PPI - conflicting - Bank earnings - so far so good - Fed allowing people to look past negatives - rather to opportunities ahead - US Chips and Exports - roughed up market Economics This Week - Import and Export Prices - Retail Sales - Philly Fed - Industrial Production - Housing Starts - Building Permits Of Interest: NY Fed says median inflation expectations remained unchanged at 3.0% at the one-year horizon, increased to 2.7% from 2.5% at the three-year horizon, and increased to 2.9% from 2.8% at the five-year horizon. - So inflation is a bit more sticky than Recession - No Says Goldman - Goldman lowers recession odds to just 15% Seasonality - The Race until the end - Sell Rosh Hashana and Buy Yom Kippur - so far so good - working just as planned. Almost... - End of year from here favors the bulls - Could have a few complications with the election right in  between but electoral promises will be  helpful for markets Markets Worried? - Biden administration officials have discussed capping sales of advanced AI chips from Nvidia Corp. and other American companies on a country-specific basis - NVDA, INTC, AMD in the crosshairs for Middle East - Officials are focused on Persian Gulf countries that have a growing appetite for AI data centers and the deep pockets to fund them - The new approach would set a ceiling on export licenses for certain countries in the interest of national security - ASML earnings miss (Stock dropped 16%) is a drag on chip/semiconductor sector Fed Powers - Former President Trump on Bloomberg interview says Fed Chair Jerome Powell dropped rates too much in 2020; says a president should be able to give his or her opinion to Fed on interest rates, but he or she shouldn't be allowed to order it ELON - Pulling a fast one - Tesla had its Optimus robots controlled by remote at CyberCab event, according to Bloomberg - Also, reports that driver-less cars controlled by remote drivers in India (or somewhere) - Isn't that fraud? Example of promises hitting the wires - Former President Trump will propose today making all interest on car loans fully tax deductible, according to Reuters - Former President Trump will also propose a 15% corporate tax rate only for companies that produce products in America - Former President Trump will also propose banning all Chinese autonomous vehicles from traveling on US roads (Special gift for Elon) Consumer Confidence - Last Friday - confidence showed people less confident - Inflation expectations lower, but dropped 2 points from last month JPM Earnings - JPMorgan Chase & Co. reported a surprise gain in net interest income for the third quarter and raised its forecast for the key revenue source, even amid expectations that US interest rates will continue to fall. - Revenue from the bank's Wall Street operations also defied analysts' estimates, with investment-banking fees surging 31%, topping estimates for a 16% gain. Equity traders notched a 27% revenue increase. - Official:  JPMorgan Chase reported strong third-quarter earnings, with earnings per share (EPS) of $4.50, beating estimates.

Does anyone care about the data? Does the Data Matta? Port Strike ENDED - for now Hurricane Milton - Strong Cat5 going to hit West Coast of Florida... Employment Report Update 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Reminder: Intel CTP is open! Warm-Up - Does anyone care about the data?Does the Data Matta? - Port Strike ENDED - for now - Hurricane Milton - Strong Cat5 going to hit West Coast of Florida... - Employment Report Markets -Headwinds, Wars, Higher Rates, Higher Fuel Costs - Who Cares? - Hurricane Impact - Oil on the move - Yields moving higher - Robotaxi Day! Want to Bet? - A federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to block a lower-court ruling allowing Americans to bet on the outcome of the 2024 congressional elections. - This will be BIG - and a difficult thing to handicap - Plenty of ways to eventually get into the betting craze 0 from sportsbooks to investors with binary style investments. - Thoughts? Hurricane Milton - Nasty Storm hitting the Gulf Area - Generac stock flying - up 8% Monday and 50% YTD - Stock is down from $500 to $170 (from peak in 2021) - Crude oil rallying - combination of Hurricane Milton and Middle East conflict -- Follow-Up: Crude Dropping as HurcMilt not going to disrupt Gulf Oil All Over - Strike OVER! - Tentative deal and back to work....after first strike since 1977 - Under the tentative new agreement, workers will earn a 61.5% raise over six years. That means the highest paid workers would make $63 per hour in the final year of the contract — up from $39. - NO AUTOMATION - The union argues that technological advances could threaten the existence and value of union jobs, a concern that has persisted to varying degrees since the Industrial Revolution first introduced machines into the manufacturing space. Budget Deficit - No One Cares - The federal budget deficit was $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. - The estimated deficit for 2024 was $139 billion more than the shortfall recorded during fiscal year 2023. - Revenues increased by an estimated $479 billion (or 11 percent). - Revenues in all major categories, but notably individual income taxes, were greater than they were in fiscal year 2023. - Outlays rose by an estimated $617 billion (or 10 percent). - The largest increase in outlays was for education ($308 billion). - Net outlays for interest on the public debt rose by $240 billion to total $950 billion. Pfizer - Starboard Value has amassed a roughly $1 billion stake in drugmaker Pfizer, according to people familiar with the matter. - Starboard believes that Pfizer's current leadership under CEO Albert Bourla has stepped away from its historically disciplined cost structure and investment in novel drugs, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential information freely. - The stock is trading about 30% lower than it did in 2019. Seriously? - Two Democratic lawmakers are demanding that some of the biggest food and beverage companies stop engaging in “shrinkflation” — the practice of reducing product sizes while charging prices that are the same or higher. - In pointed letters, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania accused General Mills, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo of engaging in a “pattern of profiteering” through shrinkflation and by “dodging taxes.” Employment Report - Nonfarm payrolls increase by 254,000 in September - Unemployment rate falls to 4.1% from 4.2% - Average hourly earnings rise 0.4%; up 4.0% year-on-year - Average workweek slips to 34.2 hours from 34.3 hours - Yields Rocking higher - above 4% now..

Bulls and Bears - (TDI Podcast running now is Bull and next week is Bear - will be interesting divergence) End of the Month - End of The Quarter Seasonality features the Bulls Fed Limericks! NEW CTP ANNOUNCED! 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm-Up - Bulls and Bears - (TDI Podcast running now is Bull and next week is Bear - will be interesting divergence) - Strike Update - could be an issue - Another Strike - different kind - Israel and Iran - VP Debate tonight Markets - End of the Month - End of The Quarter - Seasonality features the Bulls - Good quarter - setting up for more gains? - Question - Capital Gains?? - Inflation (PCE) Update --- Fed Limericks ....And another  AI generated CoverArt - what do you think? ANNOUNCING CTP for INTC Market Selling Off - Iran sending in missiles to Israel started a general concern - VIX popped over 20 for a minute - Markets down 1%++, but found reasons to try to come back mid day Inflation - Inflation moved closer to the Federal Reserve's target in August, easing the way for future interest rate cuts, the Commerce Department reported Friday. - The personal consumption expenditures price index, a measure the Fed focuses on to measure the cost of goods and services in the U.S. economy, rose 0.1% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.2%. - Excluding food and energy, core PCE rose 0.1% in August and was up 2.7% from a year ago. Fed officials tend to focus more on core as better measure of long-run trends. The respective forecasts were for 0.2% and 2.7% on core. Euro Cars - Not Good --- Blaming China.... - Stellantis on Monday trimmed its 2024 annual guidance on the back of deteriorating "global industry dynamics" and bolstered competition from China - The French-Italian conglomerate, known for brands such as Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Maserati, warned of lower-than-expected sales "across most regions" in the second half of the year. - Stock down 8% on the news - UK-based Aston Martin Global Holdings PLC has signaled that it expects lower profits for FY24 due to supply chain disruptions and a decline in sales in China. According to its trading update, the company now expects its adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) to be slightly below FY23 levels. - In addition, it no longer expects to achieve positive free cash flow in H2 2024. Following the update, AML shares crashed by around 24% as of writing. - Stock down 43% YTD - What about RACE, Ford and others? China - WOW - Best Rally n Monday since... 1998? - Shenzen and Shanghai index up 8% on the back of: ---China's factory activity contracted for a fifth consecutive month in September as the world's second-largest economy struggles to revive its growth momentum. - China's industrial profits plunged by 17.8% in August from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. ------ That followed a 4.1% year-on-year increase in July, the fastest pace in five months. -------Industrial profits covers factories, mines and utilities in China. -- While the data was better than expected, anything that shows weakness in the economy will be met with expections that there will be more easing.... -- Note: FXI (Hang Seng, up 2% - Could be time for short on parabolic move??) Hang Seng Interesting Tape - Headline at 11:30am Monday : Israel tells US that it is planning a imminent ground operation in Lebanon, according to Washington Post - Oil is steady - Markets turn positive - VIX falls abit - No fear of further escalation? Asia - Getting weird - Japan's Nikkei falls over 4%,

Finally Fed makes a move (they will not be done jabbering though) Storms heading to Florida and Gulf Coast - Natural gas prices jump COVID Shot Stocks - "fun" while it lasted Confidence is waning..... CHINA! 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm-Up - Finally Fed makes a move (they will not be done jabbering though) - Storms heading to Florida and Gulf Coast - Natural gas prices jump - COVID Stocks - "fun" while it lasted - Confidence is waning..... - CHINA! Bazooka Time! Markets - All-Time Highs - Same saying Goldilocks conditions - Seasonality favors the bulls starting next quarter - Uranium starting to move as people warming up to nuclear energy again - Trump Stock on the move Need to Pick a new CTP Exile - A leading economist in China has vanished following critical comments about President Xi Jinping‘s economic policies. - What Happened: Zhu Hengpeng, deputy director at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), was detained after allegedly criticizing Xi in a private WeChat group. Zhu's remarks reportedly included veiled criticisms of Xi's leadership and comments on China's struggling economy, reported The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. - The investigation into Zhu coincides with the Chinese Communist Party's intensified efforts to suppress negative commentary about the country's economic health. Under Xi, dissent has been increasingly punished, with critics facing imprisonment or exile. - AH would be have cement shoes if this happened in the USA On The Other Hand - CHINA PROP IT UP - China said it will allow institutional investors to tap central bank financing for stock purchases and is weighing plans for a market stabilization fund, sparking the biggest rally since 2020 for the nation's beaten-down equities. - The People's Bank of China will set up a swap facility allowing securities firms, funds and insurance companies to tap liquidity from the central bank to purchase equities - The CSI 300 Index, a benchmark of onshore Chinese stocks, surged 4.3% to cap its best day since July 2020. In Hong Kong, a gauge of Chinese shares was up more than 5% intraday. - MCHI up 8%, FXI up 8.5%, YINN (3X) up 25% M&A FOLLOW UP - Buyout firms Vista Equity Partners and Blackstone are in advanced talks to acquire Smartsheet, in a deal that could value the collaboration-software maker at close to $8 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Monday. - NEWS: Collaboration software maker Smartsheet on Tuesday announced it would be acquired by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners in an all-cash deal which valued the company at $8.4 billion. THE FED - Cuts rates by 0.50% -- Seems to have been looking to appease markets - Initial reaction was blah... Unwinding of positions put on right before the decision - Next day stocks soared - “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” the Federal Reserve statement said. - Last time Fed cut rates was COVID days , time before that was Financial Crisis of 2008 - The federal funds rate is now a range between 4.75%-5% Meanwhile - Consumer confidence in September suffers largest decline since August 2021 - The key takeaway from the report is that consumers' views of the current labor market situation continued to soften and became more pessimistic about future labor market conditions -- a sentiment that could weigh on consumer spending activity. ---- The Present Situation Index dropped to 124.3 from an upwardly revised 134.6 (from 134.4) in August.

Best week in a long time - markets popping! Cats and Dogs - all anyone can talk about these days - DogCat Bounce anyone? More back to work directives .... Apple disappointing again. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up - Best week in a long time - markets popping! - Cats and Dogs - all anyone can talk about these days - DogCat Bounce anyone? - More back to work directives .... - Apple disappointing again - All of a sudden - Now the Biden-Harris administration Market Update - BIG week of central bank rate decisions - Rotation - still a big item keeping markets in check - Rates LOW - bond traders overconfident? - Oil comes back after miserable 2 weeks - TrumpCoin? Central Banks - The Federal Reserve's highly anticipated two-day meeting, which gets underway Tuesday, is poised to take center stage. - Elsewhere, Brazil's central bank is scheduled to hold its next policy meeting on Wednesday. - The Bank of England, Norway's Norges Bank and South Africa's Reserve Bank will all follow on Thursday. - Bank of Japan will provide its rate decision Friday --- Markets getting a bit more volatile ahead of this Fed rate decision BACK TO WORK! - Amazon is instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo on Monday. - The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon's earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new policy. One Day Later - Oracle provide some really nice earnings and guidance that the market loved... (Discussed last week) - A day later: --- Oracle now sees at least $66 billion in fiscal 2026 revenue, around $1.5 billion more than analysts had expected. ---- Capital spending also will increase. ------The company plans for over $104 billion in revenue in the 2029 fiscal year. - Odd that  this was the next day - Stock up 55% - 2nd best of tech companies just behind Nvdia - Larry is now 2d richest person in the world behind Elon Musk Economics - August Retail Sales 0.1% vs -0.2% Briefing.com Consensus; prior revised to 1.1% from 1.0% - August Retail Sales ex-auto 0.1% vs 0.2% Briefing.com Consensus; prior unrevised at 0.4% - August Industrial Production 0.8% vs 0.1% Briefing.com Consensus; prior revised to -0.9% from -0.6% - August Capacity Utilization 78.0% vs 77.9% Briefing.com Consensus; prior revised to 77.4% from 77.8% --- Generally economy is speeding up again and looks like signs that manufacturing may be picking up More Issues - This is a bad apple - The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a top banking regulator in the United States, said on Thursday it has issued an enforcement action against Wells Fargo due to deficiencies in its risk management practices. - There will be no penalties - but company is still in the penalty box due to past issues China Apple - Online retailers in China have slashed the prices of Apple's new iPhone 16 series ahead of its official release, as consumers in the world's largest smartphone market hold out for the release of the US company's first on-device artificial intelligence (AI) software. - They are blaming this on the delay of any significant AI features Intel Gets $$$ - The Biden-Harris Administration announced today that Intel Corporation has been awarded up to $3 bln in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act for the Secure Enclave program. The program is designed to expand the trusted manufacturing of leading-edge semiconductors for the U.S. government.

August ends on the high side - (like July) and then gets knocked down hard (like August) and then Rips higher on Monday (like August) Rate cut bets are in place Market very skittish - September not the best month on average VIX hits 25 last week 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up - Another Rough Start to the month - Apple Event - market was - Last episode - ETF and Funds Education - lots of great comments on that! - DEBATE TIME - right in the middle of our show! Someone needs to look at our schedule Market Update - August ends on the high side - (like July) and then gets knocked down hard (like August) and then Rips higher on Monday (like August) - Rate cut bets are in place - Market very skittish - September not the best month on average - VIX hits 25 last week - Yen Carry trade issue not fully resolved - YIELD CURVE UPDATE Big News - Yield curve normalizes for 2/10's - Yield curve is not normal - this is what happened  in 2001 and 2008 Apple Event - Apple introduces Apple Watch Series X with a new design. - Largest most advanced display ever with 30% more screen area. - The display is larger than the Apple Watch Ultra. - Display will be 40% brighter. - Watch will be 10% thinner than Apple Watch 9. - Background noise will be surprised on phone calls. - Smart Stack will add widgets whenever you need them. - Adding translate application. -Apple Watch can track menstrual cycles. - Apple Watch can alert users to sleep apnea. - Starts at $399. - A few incremental updates otherwise and talk of AI to come - one day someday More Apple - Europe's top court on Tuesday ruled against Apple in the tech giant's 10-year court battle over its tax affairs in Ireland. - The Commission in 2016 ordered Dublin to recover up to 13 billion euros ($14.4 billion) in back taxes from Apple, at the time saying that the tech company had received "illegal" tax benefits from Ireland over the course of two decades. - So is this final this time? - How is this possible anyway - Ireland granted tax benefits for the purpose of benefiting jobs etc.... Apple Competition - Huawei's tri-fold phone receives over 4 mln pre-orders ($2,800 per) - Have you seen this? - VERY COOL device Palantir -  Palantir Technologies hits best levels since early 2021 following inclusion in S&P 500 - +15% on the  news Dell - Dell also is added to the S&P 500 - Etsy and American Airlines out Tech - Oracle Earnings - Oracle beats on some metrics and has some great outlook - Missed on EPS - Partnering with Amazon - The company said Oracle Database is thriving, and the multi-cloud agreements it has with Microsoft, Google, and now AWS make it easier for its customers to run their Oracle Databases in the cloud. - Stock at ATH NVDA - WORST DAY EVER for a stock - Slide last week took at $300 BILLION on market value in one day. - New DOJ probe in anti-trust case - The agency is asking questions about whether Nvidia makes it harder to switch to other suppliers of AI chips. - Nvidia has over 80% of the market for data center AI chips, according to industry estimates. Best Buy - People are buying... - Raising full year guidance - Comparable sales declined 2.3% during the quarter, compared with a 6.2% decline a year earlier. --- It is all about  the expectations... Glasses - Again? - Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC the chip designer is working with Samsung and Google to explore a mixed-reality set of glasses linked to a smartphone - Last year, Google, Samsung and Qualcomm struck a partnership to develop mixed-reality technology. - This is supposed to be a smaller version of what is out the...

A show dedicated to the many questions of our listeners. We focus on ETFs and Mutual Funds, contrasting and comparing the differences. Financial Literacy is not just one month a year! 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Talking Financial Literacy We are going to discuss details of what an ETF is and the differences from those investment vehicles and mutual funds. ETFs are investment funds that trade on stock exchanges, holding a diversified portfolio. ETFs offer instant diversification by allowing investors to buy a small slice of a variety of assets. ETFs trade like stocks, with prices fluctuating throughout the trading day. Popular for their diversification, lower costs, trading flexibility, and tax efficiency. Types of ETFs include stock, bond, commodity, international, sector/thematic, and inverse/leveraged ETFs. Downsides include market risk, tracking errors, liquidity issues, and the complexity of specialized ETFs. Key differences with mutual funds include trading mechanisms, costs, management styles, and tax implications.   Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Closest to The Pin for - United Healthcare (UNH) Winners will be getting great stuff like the new DHUnplugged Shirts (Designed by Jimbo) - PLUS a one-of-a-kind DHUnplugged CTP Winner's certificate..   FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS JCD Score () See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Path Change - Once the air clears, how will markets react? Cracking down on excessive "junk" fees Cracking down on Unfree Speech? Jackson Hole - big update about "The Path" 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up -Cracking down on excessive "junk" fees - Cracking down on Unfree Speech? - Jackson Hole - big update about "The Path" - Intel is nervous Market Update - Lower End Consumers Fueling Spend - Big news this week - NVDA earnings - Rotation ? Consumers are still spending (Discounters loving it!) - Taxing Unrealized Gains? Political rhetoric - Taxing Unrealized gains - questions coming in --- Realize this is for the ultra-rich and the potential to get this passed is not high - BUT - Harris campaign wants to see about higher taxes - which are needed, but not a good thing ----- How else are we going to pay back this mountain of debt? Jackson Hole - Time to Change the Path of Rates - Powell was clear and they are now pricing in a 100% probability of a 0.25% rate cut for September - 0.50% will probably scare some people - so 0.25% is plan - Odd ahead of election - but maybe Powell realizes he is behind the curve Target - Against the odds? - Target beat Wall Street's earnings and revenue expectations on Wednesday. - Sales at the discounter grew as shoppers made more visits to Target's stores and website and bought more discretionary items like clothing. - Yet, the retailer struck a cautious note, saying it expects comparable sales for the full year to be in the lower range of its guidance. - Target raised its profit guidance, however, saying it expects adjusted earnings per share to range from $9 to $9.70, up from the previous range of $8.60 and $9.60. - Investors loved it! Stock moved from $135 - $169 on the news (back to $158) ---- Walmart near ATH and Ross Stores stock at ATH SpaceX - Boeing - So embarrassing for Boeing... - Starliner is going to come back - Unmanned... - Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year Telegram - Telegram messaging app CEO Durov arrested in France - Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody. - Free speech under fire? Or is this more than just a Twitter alternative. - Supposedly 900M Daily Active users??? Junk Fees - FTC trying to crack down on "junk fees" - Last year, 15% of restaurant owners added surcharges or fees to checks because of higher costs, according to the National Restaurant Association - Inflation fee, credit card fee, health-care fee, house fee - Restaurants are fighting back as they want the fees to add to bottom line and increase profitability and benefit staff. - Makes the entire idea of going out to eat an expensive proposition. What is this? - Microsoft said Friday it will hold a conference in September for cybersecurity firms to discuss ways the industry can evolve following a faulty CrowdStrike software update that caused millions of Windows computers to crash in July. - Microsoft will meet with CrowdStrike and other security companies at its campus in Redmond, Washington, on Sept. 10 to discuss how to prevent similar issues in the future --- Wasn't this already something that was not supposed to happen? - The executive said participants at the Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit will explore the possibility of having applications rely more on a part of Windows called user mode instead of the more privileged kernel mode. - Software from CrowdStrike Check Point,

Jackson Hole ECO Confab (this week) Live Nation is in trouble Icahn get a slap on the wrist Gold - ripping - where to next? 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up - Jackson Hole ECO Confab (this week) - Live Nation is in trouble - Icahn get a slap on the wrist - Gold - ripping - where to next? - Price Controls - 3rd Rail? Market Update - Nearing all-time highs again - Buy the Dips! - Yields under 4% on 10-Year - Yen still in control - Back to Overbought again - still thinking not out of the woods - Lowe's and Home Depot Outlook - POOR (But stocks are up) Jackson Hole - Aristocrats line up to speak - Big doings as often a platform for Fed and other central bankers to make policy adjustments - Powell scheduled to speak at 10am Friday --- With all of the latest data and market push - what will he do?? - Before that - Wednesday we will see the July FOMC minutes GOLDDDDDDDD - Gold hit all-time high last Friday ($2,509.65) !!!!NOW $2,563!!!!! - WHY? Discussion ranges from Fed Reserve, Election, Middle East, India Buying.... - Gold has been a better GOLD then Bitcoin - just saying... Monopoly - Finally! - Ten Additional States Join Justice Department's Suit Against Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolizing Markets Across the Live Concert Industry - Today, the Attorneys General of Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont joined a civil antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, 29 other states and the District of Columbia against Live Nation-Ticketmaster for monopolization and other unlawful conduct in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. - Stock does not seem to care - or believe anything adverse will happen AMD buys ZT Systems - $4.9 Billion - What is ZT Systems? The company engages in full rack deployment -- a block filled with servers, storage, switches, etc. -- for hyperscale data centers. ZT also commands a data center infrastructure manufacturing business, for which AMD announced it would seek out a strategic partner to offload this part of the company. - Clearly the company does not have a CHIP or infrastructure  ready for a major AI play at this time. Carl Ichan - Hand Slap - Carl Icahn and his publicly traded company Icahn Enterprises settled with the SEC over allegedly failing to disclose billions worth in stock-backed borrowing. - Icahn and IELP will pay a combined $2 million in fines, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, over the failure to disclose as much as $5 billion in margin loans that were backed by Icahn's stake in the company. - Icahn, a well-known activist investor, had been facing pressure from another activist short seller in 2023. (Hindenburg which is still short the shares) Circle K 11? - Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard (Circle K) has sounded out Japan's Seven & i (7-Eleven) about a potential takeover, the two companies said on Monday, making the 7-Eleven owner the largest-ever Japanese target of a foreign buyout. - While the value of the offer has not been disclosed, the bid is the latest example of the growing interest in Japanese companies by Western investors, who have been drawn by the country's push for better governance. - News of the deal sent shares of Seven & i surging by almost 23% in Tokyo Chicken and the Egg - Chicken prices are going up - Perdue Foods is recalling more than 167,000 pounds of frozen chicken nuggets and tenders after some customers reported finding metal wire embedded in the products. - According to Perdue and the U.S. Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, the recall covers select lots of three product...

Cut taxes on SS and Tips? President decides rates? China - inflation ticking up YEN volatility - NOT OVER 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up - Cut taxes on SS and Tips? - President decides rates? - China - inflation ticking up - YEN volatility - NOT OVER - Announcing the WINNER for the UNH CTP Market Update - CRISIS AVERTED - August doldrums - but big week of Eco Data - Market Punishing earnings misses - more than usual - Same old  = going back to the Mega-Cap trade while pulling other sectors down - PPI out - changing direction Crisis Averted - Monday (last) Yen plunge then pick up - Come on - Japan markets fell 12% then rallied 10%  - intervention anyone? --- Clearly there is an invisible hand at work here ---- Plus Japan officials waled back their "hawkish" comments ---- 17 years of ZERO or NEGATIVE rates, markets don't want to give that up --- Do you know why this is all happy pappy now? How did they resolve the 2 day crisis? (Hint - $$$$) - Japanese markets have recovered ALL of the losses since last Monday - ALL Volume/Vacations - August - Volumes are down across the board. Aside from a couple of days when markets moved lower - Will probably continue to see slow markets (unless some outside shock) through Labor Day - However  - big week of ECO data - - CPI, PPI, UMich, Import/Export prices, Retail Sales (no one has a clue what the trajectory is from here) Month to Date MTD IWN iShs Russell 2000 Value ETF -7.87% IWM iShs Russell 2000 ETF -7.10% IWO iShs Russell 2000 Grwth ETF -6.15% IWD iShs Russell 1000 Val ETF -2.45% IWB iShs Russell 1000 ETF -1.68% IWF iShs Russell 1000 Gwth ETF -1.00% Really? - Former President Donald Trump this week repeated his plan to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits for seniors. - The Republican nominee called for "no tax for seniors on Social Security" during a "Fox & Friends" interview Wednesday - Of course Harris/Walz also want to cut taxes on SS now... ***** Some "experts" say that this will hurt the solvency of SS and Medicare even more - now expected to run out in 2035 --- Oh - let's eliminate taxes on TIPS ---- The Waiters & waitresses workforce and tipped in service industry are about 4 Million people (1% of population Where do we stand on this.. - Presidents having a direct say - or vote - on Fed decisions? Switcher-rooo - Chipotle Mexican Grill announces that Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO has accepted the role as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks (SBUX) and will be leaving the Company effective August 31, 2024 - -On the news, SBUX up 17% and CMG down 10% China - China's consumer prices rose by a more-than-expected 0.5% in July from a year ago, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics released Friday. - Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a slight pickup in the consumer price index to 0.3% in July from a year ago, versus 0.2% in June. - Is this good news or bad? PPI - July Core PPI 0.0% vs. 0.2% Briefing.com consensus; prior revised to 0.3% from 0.4% -- Disinflation is speeding up - nearing DEFLATION concerns - Tomorrow - CPI Another one... - Home Depot on Tuesday topped quarterly expectations, but cautioned that sales will be weaker than expected in the back half of the year as high interest rates and consumer uncertainty dampen demand. - The home improvement retailer said it now expects full-year comparable sales to decline by 3% to 4% compared to the prior fiscal year. It had previously expected comparable sales, a metric that takes out the impact of store openings and closures and other one-time factors,

Japan stocks PLUNGE! Tech stocks in correction - nearing bear market. What does the crystal ball tell us? Where is the PPP? 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up - OMG - Did you see that? - Fear - blood in the streets - Looking for someone to blame for the selloff - Boeing news....Finally Market Update - RISK off - all risk assets (aside from bonds) down in August - Bitcoin - CRUSHED - as with other cryptos - so much for safe-haven - 13:1 Day Decliners to Advancers (that is pretty significant. - Records broken - Worst day in 50 years for one stock Where is the PPP? - Now we are hearing about an emergency cut - looking for a 0.75% cut (Jeremy Seigel) - Investors looking for a save - Plunge Protection Team!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Seems like Tuesday in Japan - PPP to the rescue - +10% Bitcoin and ETH - Seriously - takes it on the chin down 15% with global market sell-off - What happened to it being a safe-haven - all but discounted at this point.... Japan's first increase in decades - Actually, last increase was 2017 - so 17 YEARS OF LOW RATES - The Widowmaker trade is finally working - but for how long? - Japan's major stock market - YEN Up 11% since 7/11/2024 and  the Nikkei is down  23% (28% at low on Monday) since 7/11/2024 - Carry-Trade (borrow Yen at low rate and reinvest) BLOWING UP - WORST day for Japan's markets since Black Monday in 1987 --- The loss of 4,451.28 points on the index was also the largest in terms of points in its entire history. -=-=-=-= This is not the first time Japan's central bank has caused this type of situation. Their entire investing and monetary process is very dangerous. -=-=-=-=- - Japan's Nikkei had the best day since 2008 on Tuesday Repercussions - Stocks around the world got hammered - worrying about YEN unwind as well as the earnings and outlook from Tech - Kospi -8% down Monday - World stocks off by 3%+ - UGLY moves and lots of trading opportunities - $1 Trillion in market cap erased from Mega-Caps Monday (Mag7) AND - A sharp drop in U.S. stocks is provoking selling from volatility-sensitive funds, exacerbating a selloff - Volatility control funds - systematic investment strategies that typically buy equities when markets are calm and sell when they grow turbulent  have gorged on stocks as indexes soared to record highs in 2024 - More recently, they have begun selling, as worries over the economy and tech earnings rattle investors: volatility control funds have dumped about $83.6 billion of U.S. equity futures over the last two weeks VIX - SPIKES to 65 on Monday morning.... (Then comes down to about 36 on the close) - Historical spike like that  are  interesting signs that it may be end of route (or getting close) - - 80's for Pandemic and peak of Financial Crisis ---- Unbelievable move in 3 days that seems that most people were unprepared for Economic Issues - Nonfarm payrolls grew by just 114,000 in July, below the downwardly revised 179,000 in June and the Dow Jones estimate for 185,000. - The unemployment rate edged higher to 4.3%, its highest since October 2021, triggering an economic rule on recessions. - Health care again led, adding 55,000 to payrolls. Other notable gainers included construction (25,000), government (17,000), and transportation and warehousing (14,000). - Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% for the month and 3.6% from a year ago. Both figures were below respective forecasts for 0.3% and 3.7%. Google loses Anti-Trust - Google's payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday,

New Study - Power and AI Apple releases new AI (first version) Bitcoin - Not Buying the Electoral Rhetoric Correction territory for many tech names 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Warm Up - NEW CTP ANNOUNCED! - Jailtime? Short Seller targeted - The EXCITING Summer Olympics - Last vote - never again! Market Update - New Study - Power and AI - Apple releases new AI (first version) - Bitcoin - Not Buying the Electoral Rhetoric - Correction territory for many of the tech names.... - Microsoft Earnings... Crowdstrike Glitch - 2nd shoe is dropping - Lawsuits are on the way - hitting Crowdstrike and Microsoft - Several announced this week..... - CRWD still falling - Down 40% since before the "glitch"   Microsoft - Reports Q4 (Jun) earnings of $2.95 per share, $0.01 better than the FactSet Consensus of $2.94; revenues rose 15.2% year/year to $64.73 bln vs the $64.38 bln FactSet Consensus. - Azure and other cloud services revenue growth of +29%, +30% constant currency vs +30-31% CC prior guidance. - Guides next quarter is below consensus - Stock getting hit - down 7% initially, but comes back a bit in after-hours AMD - Better than feared - stock up after hours nicely Intel - cutting 1000's of  jobs - they are not a contender at all Citron Boss - The activist short seller Andrew Left surrendered in Los Angeles on Monday to face federal criminal securities fraud charges, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office there said. (Like he was in jail until bail was paid!) - $10M Bail - Andrew Left - is accused of using his public platform, which included social media posts on X and appearances on CNBC, to make illegal profits of at least $16 million by manipulating stock market activity and trading in a way that was contrary to the positions he publicly purported to take. - Left is also being sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which in a civil complaint filed last week in LA federal court accused him and Citron of “engaging in a $20 million multi-year scheme to defraud followers by “publishing false and misleading statements regarding his supposed stock trading recommendations.” - “Left bragged to colleagues that some of these statements [he made] were especially effective at inducing retail investors to trade based on his recommendations and said that it was like taking ‘candy from a baby,'” the SEC alleges in that lawsuit. Big Boys - Tuesday Update - NVDA (-6.5%) extends to session lows, as AI group comes under pressure ahead of key earnings reports and AI capex guides... other AI movers of note include ARM -6%, VRT -6%, SMCI -5.5%, QCOM -4%, MU -3%, SMH -3% Eurozone - The euro zone's economy grew by more than expected in the second quarter of 2024, flash figures from the European Union's statistics office showed Tuesday. - The zone's gross domestic product rose by 0.3% in the three months to the end of June compared to the previous quarter, the data showed. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.2% increase on a quarterly basis. McDonald's Earnings - McDonald's on Monday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed analysts' expectations as same-store sales declined across every division. - Earnings per share: $2.97 adjusted vs. $3.07 expected - Revenue: $6.49 billion vs. $6.61 billion expected - “At the end of the day, we expect customers will continue to feel the pinch of the economy and a higher cost of living for at least the next several quarters in this very competitive landscape,” McDonald's U.S. President Joe Erlinger said - Stock - Went up - Big plan ????? Bring back the Value Meal (How does that actually help?)

DJIA - FAILED - worst week in ages Huge Failure of tech - Crowdstrike getting skewered (Down ~ 30% since incident) Dangerous market - running on emotions Tesla Earnings are out... 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Chatroom still a work in progress it appears Warm Up - Politics Goes off the rails - Biden out (Failed) - Huge Failure of tech - Crowdstrike getting skewered (Down ~ 30% since incident) - Dangerous market - running on emotions Market Update - DJIA - FAILED - worst week in ages - massive losses as UNH fails to keep up (accounted for 500+ points of that big rally in July) - Market broadened out finally - then the mega-caps started to come in and market was crushed - - Tesla Earnings are out - other tech names too Need a new CTP Market Emotions - Now that we  are in the throws of the election cycle - dangerous market - Running on emotion - and you can see that we levels (round like futures markets @ES - 5,600 and @NQ 20,000 levels as battle lines) - People will think that one or other candidate is good or bad and will invest accordingly (usually without facts) - Biden dropping  out has interesting impact - Now we have one candidate that we really do not know actual policy and track record. Also unknown VP ... Crowdstrike Glitch - Anything on your end a problem? - Some minor trading issues with Schwab for a minute on Friday - Airlines - still seem to be having issues - Bigger issues when relying on single company? - Friday and over weekend MSFT said that they restored a majority of services - Hackers are already taking advantage of situation and Crowdstike out with warnings  (some firms  may get phished into beleiving that there is a fix and it is actually a hack) Delta Offers Apologies+ - CEO Ed Bastian offered Freq flyer miles to travelers that were stuck due to Crowdstrike "glitch" - 800 flights were cancelled Sunday (22% of flights) - The airline was offering flight attendants extra pay to pick up shifts - WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THIS? (Crowdstike and passengers) Tech - Wiz Walks - $23 billion - they say NO THANKS - Wiz - 4 year old start up that makes security tools to protect data centers - May valuation was $12 billion - Company wants to go the IPO route Election - Sooooo - thoughts on the Biden dropout? (Via letter and Social Media - is that weird?) - Trump Trade fade? - Vance tough on anything  foreign? (USA First) - Anyone else aside from Harris? Bank Earnings - Looking back - not much to be upset about - so that is good - Rate expectations are for September (Dec more likely) - Yield curve has steepened (good for profit margin of banks) - Fed continues to be dovish - Trump expectations of reduced regulations? More Earnings - Google/Alphabet - Alphabet prelim Q2 $1.89 vs $1.84 FactSet Consensus; revs $84.74 bln vs $84.22 bln FactSet Consensus --- Margin 32% vs 29& a year ago (Stock initially up then tuend lower on lower advert revenue  and other AI comments) - Tesla Earnings - Tesla prelim Q2 $0.52 vs $0.61 FactSet Consensus; revs $25.5 bln vs $24.38 bln FactSet Consensus -- Tesla prelim: GAAP gross margin of 18.0%, down 23 bps yr/yr ---- Tesla prelim: reiterates that in 2024, its vehicle growth rate may be notably lower than growth rate achieved in 2023 (Stock down 5%) - Visa: Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $2.42 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the FactSet Consensus of $2.42; revenues rose 9.6% year/year to $8.9 bln vs the $8.92 bln FactSet Consensus. (Stock down 10%) Warren - Berkshire Hathaway trimmed its gigantic Bank of America holding for the first time in four and a half years following the bank's strong 2024 run.

Market Rotation continues - "Trump" stocks got boost after weekend (Biden stocks took a hit) Risk On - Risk Off is the play (Fundamentals are not being  considered at the moment) KRI Indicator - Doing something not done since June 2020 Earnings growth expected to continue.... 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Chatroom should be back up and running.... Warm Up - Assassination Attempts = Market Positive (for US Markets ONLY) - ALL TIME HIGHS ACROSS THE BOARD - SMALL CAPS ON A BENDER - Disinflation OUT - Deflation IN - College athletes - Min Wage? Market Update - Market Rotation continues - "Trump" stocks got boost after weekend (Biden stocks took a hit) - Risk On - Risk Off is the play (Fundamentals are not being  considered at the moment) - KRI Indicator - Doing something not done since June 2020 - Earnings growth expected to continue.... - Gold at ATH - Bitcoin moving - Risk on or Worries about the future? OH MY - Small Caps +10% MTD , 11% YTD (Tom Lee calling for 40% move over next 12 weeks...) - Value over Growth - Real Estate - Builders - WOW! --- Jump from 50 to 400+ 52 Week Highs today ----- Money coming out of Big boys - rotating and it is uneven pull/push - KRE - Regional banks up 14% this month ----- DJIA UP BIG AGAIN - Rates holding at lower end of the range Post Assassination Attempt (Monday Markets) - European Markets RED across the board - Russian Market GREEN - China RED - Japan RED - US Markets GREEN - Bitcoin and Ether - GREEN Powell on Monday - Markets came in as Powell -ONCE AGAIN - repeated the same mantra of not done - but looking to cut before we reach 2% -B.O.R.I.N.G. Trump Media - DJT Stock: Trump Media shares surged over 50% in premarket trading Monday following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. - Was up 30% by end of day on Monday China Economic Update - China's National Bureau of Statistics on Monday said the country's second-quarter GDP rose by 4.7% year on year, missing expectations of a 5.1% growth, according to a Reuters poll. - Retail sales also missed expectations, rising by 2% year-on-year in June, versus the 3.3% forecast. - Industrial production beat expectations up by 5.3% in June from a year ago, above the forecast 5% increase. - Urban fixed asset investment for the first six months of the year rose by 3.9%, matching expectations. - China's GDP grew by 5.3% year on- year in the first quarter. KRI Indicator - Hitting +6 and that has not happened since June 2020 - First time over +5 since Dec 2023 (pulled back a few days later, then continued its upward trajectory - Rolled over a bit a few days later then continued its upward trajectory (BULL MARKET) Any Surprise? Retail.... - Macy's -14.2% is sharply lower after terminating M&A talks with Arkhouse Mgmt and Brigade Capital - Burberry, a luxury brand which trades in London, also issued a profit warning and named a new CEO. - These developments are leading to weakness in some department store names: JWN -3%, KSS -2.7%, DDS -2.3%. - Consumer is starting to fight  back????? DEFLATION? - CPI was NEGATIVE MoM - PPI was hot and cold - depending on what number you looked at Deflation CPI Chart   Finally! - Archegos Capital Management founder Sung Kook "Bill" Hwang was convicted of fraud and other charges by a jury in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday at a criminal trial in which prosecutors accused him of market manipulation ahead of the 2021 collapse of his $36 billion private investment firm. - The trial centered on the implosion of Hwang's family office Archegos,

Shark Week (Market Style) - Whale Gorging - Big Teeth - Big Appetites Earnings season coming up Biden staying in the race (for now) Complacency nearing a tipping point. 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm Up - Shark Week - Whale Gorging - Big Teeth - Big Appetites - Earnings season coming up - Biden staying in the race - Market Moves - the inside track - NEW - ALL ABOUT BIDEN ISSSUES Market Update - Big Swings - Massive Rotation - Employment Report for June - Market Moves - the inside track - Big Box - down to a few Fed First - Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Q&A with Senate Banking Committee: The "likely next direction" of policy will be a loosening of policy; rate hike not likely Employment Reports - Private payroll growth edged lower in June, according to a report Wednesday from ADP that indicates a potential slowdown in the U.S. labor market. - Companies added 150,000 jobs for the month, below the upwardly revised 157,000 in May and the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 160,000. The total was the lowest monthly gain since January. - BLS Official saw Unemp rate tick up to 4.1% -Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 206,000 in June - Job gains occurred in government, health care, social assistance, and construction. The Inside Track Lowdown -- People asking  me "When will this end? It is crazy!" - This week we will be treated to CPI and PPI. - As it stands, Powell made comments after the close on July 3rd that they  were not satisfied with the rate of change related to inflation.  There is more work to be done he said. But, the markets don't really care about that - they see a cut in September and December. - The general direction of the markets - or path of least resistance appears to be up. - Investors are gorging themselves on AI related names. - The big boys (and girls) of the market are taking in big money - helping to keep markets buoyed. - - It has the look and feel of great white sharks in a ravenous feeding frenzy over a rotting whale corpse. - Full Disclosure - we hold a good number of these names in our core equity allocation. Microsoft, Nvidia, SMCI, Google (Alphabet), Meta (Facebook) and several more. - Monday moves - the DJIA was up big to start the day and at the lunchtime break was in the red. The money clearly flowed out of DJIA and into the NASDAQ100 again. So, this is how it will be for a while, or until something changes. And, that may very well be the next batch of earnings through the season that begins on this coming Friday with the major financial names. Ford - Ford truck sales, which includes pickups and vans, totaled 308,920 vehicles during the period, the company's best second-quarter performance for the category since 2019, Ford said. Sales in its F-Series totaled 199,463 vehicles. - Sales of Ford electric vehicles totaled 23,957 during the second quarter, up 61%. - The automaker said its EVs, in particular the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, are drawing new customers to the company. - Stock is stuck in a range Boeing - Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a fine of $243.6 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation into two 737 MAX fatal crashes, the government said in a court filing on Sunday. - The plea deal, which requires a judge's approval, would brand the planemaker a convicted felon in connection with crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia over a five-month period in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. - Smart - quick slap on the wrist and get it over with (for publicity sake) - As part of the deal, the planemaker agreed to spend at least $455 million over the next three years to...

Let them eat tech! Meme stock mania may be dying down Short week - July 3rd 1/2 day, July 4 - closed - July 5? How About those Florida Panthers? 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm Up - Let them eat tech! - Meme stock mania may be dying down - Short week - July 3rd 1/2 day, July 4 - closed - July 5? - How About those Florida Panthers? Market Update - Heavily weighted toward 10 stocks - breath sucks - Seeing slowdown in consumer confidence and holding steady on most economic reports - Some concerns mounting about Russia - Stress Tests - Anyone Surprised? Russia Issues - NATO wants to put a senior civilian official in Kyiv, Ukraine - Market was a little concerned about this - as new broke, selling occurred (for about 5 minutes) HA! Play with Fire - Keith Gill, the investor known as "Roaring Kitty" who helped spur the meme stock mania of 2021, was sued by GameStop investors who said they lost money through his "pump-and-dump" scheme for the videogame retailer. - A proposed class action accusing Gill of securities fraud was filed on Friday in the Brooklyn, New York federal court. - Investors led by Martin Radev, who lives in the Las Vegas area, said Gill manipulated GameStop securities between May 13 and June 13 by quietly accumulating large quantities of stock and call options, and then dumping some holdings after emerging from a three-year social media hiatus. More Kitty Hoo-Haa - Shares of Chewy popped in the premarket trading Monday after a Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed meme stock trader "Roaring Kitty" took a stake in the pet food e-commerce retailer. - The filing showed Keith Gill bought just over 9 million shares — amounting to a 6.6% stake in the company. That makes him the third-biggest Chewy shareholder, according to FactSet. Based on Friday's close, that stake is valued at more than $245 million. - Stock was initially p 16% in premarket (that is after some wild swings last week) ---- Close DOWN 6% on the day after that initial pop - This guy is up Ryan Cohen's butt pretty far.. Chipotle Split Update - Trading near a post-split low - Stock initially moved higher toward $68 then reverses hard over the past few sessions, trading near $60 - This is important as investors may not just run into split announcements after this performance. ---- Or people are finally agreeing with JCD on the lack of taste? Boeing - Boeing said Monday that it will buy back its struggling fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems in an all-stock deal that the plane maker has said will improve safety and quality control. - It said it agreed to pay $37.25 a share in Boeing stock for Spirit, giving the aerospace company an equity value of $4.7 billion. Including Spirit's debt the deal has a transaction value of $8.3 billion Boeing said. Spirit's shares closed Friday at $32.87 a share, giving it a market capitalization of about $3.8 billion. ---- MORE: U.S. prosecutors plan to seek a guilty plea from Boeing over a charge tied to two fatal crashes of 737 Max planes, attorneys for the victims' family members said Sunday, blasting a potential agreement as a "sweetheart deal." - The DOJ said in May that it was reviewing whether Boeing violated a 2021 settlement that protected Boeing from federal charges. The company agreed to pay a $2.5 billion penalty for a conspiracy charge tied to the 2018 and 2019 crashes of its best-selling 737 Max planes, which killed all 346 people on the two flights. OIL! - Breaking out -- Concerns over supply issues due to Houthi rebels droning Suez Canal --- Hurricane season hitting early - EARLIEST Cat4 on record happening now!

- Churn and Burn - RAMP UP - Rotation (Renting Space) - Long Stretch with limited volatility - Short Interest at MULTI year lows - NVDA becomes worlds MVC for a minute 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm Up - Summer Spin Cycle - New flow shifting to election - Banks - Fed's Stress Test Results  (Wednesday) - Last week of month and quarter! Market Update - Churn and Burn - RAMP UP - Rotation (Renting Space) - Long Stretch with limited volatility - Short Interest at MULTI year lows - NVDA becomes worlds MVC for a minute Next week is JULY 4th - Markets closing early (1PM) on Wednesday - Markets Closed on Thursday - Most people will take Friday off! Short Interest - Multi-Year low on S&P 500 and stocks - Hedge fund disclosures stopping some from shorting (after Meme stock craze) - Seems that no shorts helping to calm volatility Stock Market - Weird Facts - The S&P 500 has gone 377 days without a 2.05% sell-off. That's the longest stretch for the benchmark since the great financial crisis - The index hasn't experienced a gain of at least 2.15% in that time either - The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) is considered by many investors as the de facto fear gauge on the Street. Last month, it hit its lowest level going back to November 2020. On Friday, it traded around 13, near historically low levels. - Complacency or Green-Light? Home Prices - Sales of previously owned homes are sitting at a 30-year low, and didn't move much in May as prices hit a new record and mortgage rates remain high. - Many reasons - but no place to go, high rates and high prices - IF more inventory comes on the market - possibly prices will come down (Last month inventories jumped 6.7%) - Median price of a home sold in May was $419,300 More Homes - Sales of homes priced below $250,000 were lower than a year ago, while sales priced between $250,000 and $500,000 were up just 1%. Sales priced between $750,000 and $1 million were 13% higher, and sales priced over $1 million were up nearly 23%. - Cash is still king, accounting for 28% of sales. - First-time buyers are hanging in at 31% of sales, up from 28% the year before. MORE HOUSING - April S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index 7.2% vs. 6.9% Briefing.com consensus; prior revised to 7.5% from 7.4% ERC Credit DENIED - The IRS will deny billions of dollars' worth of claims for a pandemic-era tax break while working to process lower-risk filings, the agency said on Thursday afternoon. - These are what you heard on commercials for a while... - After investigating more than 1 million claims worth roughly $86 billion, the IRS said in the release that it identified 10% to 20% of the highest-risk filings, and "tens of thousands" will be rejected in the coming weeks, according to the agency. Another 60% to 70% of claims with an "unacceptable level of risk" will be further examined, the IRS said. - During the ERC review period, the agency processed 28,000 claims received before September 2023 worth $2.2 billion and disallowed more than 14,000 claims worth $1 billion, according to the release. TESLA - Headcount reduction continues - 14% of workforce has been slashed this year -- The latest figure is not from precise payroll data, but from the number of people who are on Tesla's "everybody" email distribution list as of June 17 - Bloomberg reporting that Telsa looming for 20% total headcount cut in 2023 to benefit profitability after company reached inefficiency levels of 25% -30% Musk - Need to know - How many children did Elon father? Banks - Fed Stress Tests on Wednesday (all should pass) - U.S. bank regulators said four major banks had shortcomings in their "...

Apple AI - Disappoints (or confuses) NVDA - passes AAPL market cap Treasury yields moving within a range Beanstalk - what is that story again? 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter NO SHOW NET WEEK - OUT ON BIZ FOR A FEW DAYS Warm Up - Apple AI - Disappoints (or confuses) - for a minute - NVDA - passes AAPL market cap - Treasury yields moving within a range - Beanstalk - what is that story again? - Fed in play Market Update - Large Caps dominate June (thus far) - Small-caps out of favor - Buyers are hungry - any dip is bought - Economic confusion - Jobs report - NVDA - 10:1 completed (now what?) Apple WWDC - Pins and Needles - Features will go beyond artificial intelligence to personal intelligence. - Will protect privacy at every step. Capabilities: - Will enable iPhone to create language and images.Language understanding will be natural. - New writing tools can summarize text when you are working on a blog post. - Users can create new emojis for conversation. - Images can be created in three styles. Actions: - Will allow hundreds of "actions" such as "show me my photos from last week" or "show me the podcast my mom wanted me to listen to last week." - Apple Intelligence is powered by large language models. - Introduces Apple Private Cloud with personalized AI. - Siri will be able to take AI enabled actions. It will allow for more natural language. ---- Market not impressed - was hoping for BIG AI announcement from Apple. ------ Stock down on this news - then POPS to ATH on Tuesday Elon on Apple AI - Elon Musk said he would ban Apple Inc. devices from his companies if OpenAI's software is integrated into the products at the operating system level. - The remarks followed a presentation Monday by Apple Inc., when it said that customers would have access to OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot through the Siri digital assistant. Apple plans to roll out the capabilities as part of a suite of new AI features later this year. Jobs report - May nonfarm payrolls increased by 272,000 (Briefing.com consensus 185,000). - The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls increased to 249,000 from 237,000. - April nonfarm payrolls revised to 165,000 from 175,000. March nonfarm payrolls revised to 310,000 from 315,000. - May average hourly earnings were up 0.4% - Unemployment rate moved up to 4% --- YET - still HOPE for 1-2 rate cuts this year OOPS - Toyota - company has lost %15B market cap after false data found - Japan's transport ministry found false data used to certify certain models a week ago on Monday. - Other companies too - Toyota, Mazda, Suzuki, Yamaha -- Companies falsifying data used in safety tests. - Toyota chairman: "tested using methods that differ from the standards defined by the national authorities." --- Collusion???? Gold - Short Supply? - According to the World Gold Council - Gold hard to find - New gold deposits are becoming harder to find around the world as many prospective areas have already been explored - Gold Strategist: "I think the overwhelming story there is: after 10 years of rapid growth from around 2008, the mining industry is struggling to report sustained growth in production," said Reade. - Bottom Line: "It's getting harder to find gold, permit it, finance it, and operate it," Game-Stop Already - Shares tank 40% after another big run up - Keith Gill live stream - Continues to post cryptic messages now that he is back - Must be bored Panic Buttons - Retail giant Walmart says it is against putting panic buttons in stores - a move that the New York legislature wants to require under a new law aimed at keeping retail workers safe.

Sinkholes forming Memes again - Huge Moves Economy starting to stall Face Ripper moves into the close 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATE - Show 700 Campaign Warm Up - Sinkholes forming - Memes again - Huge Moves - Economy starting to stall - Announcing a NEW CTP Market Update - Face Ripping - Last Friday - Software Stocks hammered - May finished in the green nicely - Oil Drooping - Roaring Kitty is back Face Rip - Stocks ramped on the last day of the month - 300 points in 10 minutes to finish the day on Friday - markets had a good month - -- Large Cap Growth up 6% for the month - US real estate up 5% - Only area LataAm down for May Sinkhole Forming Again - MEGA Caps pulling market up - Primarily NVDA - Monday S&P 500 Flat - S&P Equal Weight  -0.53% Best Buy Earnings - "Sluggish Demand" -  Earnings per share: $1.20 vs. $1.08 expected   Revenue: $8.85 billion vs. $8.96 billion expected - Best Buy has noticed a pullback in purchases of discretionary items as consumers manage higher costs because of inflation. - Shares soar Software stocks Soft - Salesforce plunges 20% after it posted weaker than expected revenue - The WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, an exchange-traded fund that tracks cloud stocks, slid 5% this week, the sharpest decline since January. Paycom, GitLab, Confluent, Snowflake and ServiceNow all lost at least 10% of their value in the downdraft. - Dell PLUNGED - 20% too this week Economics - April Construction Spending -0.1% vs 0.2% Briefing.com Consensus; prior -0.2% - May ISM Manufacturing Index 48.7 vs 49.6 Briefing.com consensus; prior 49.2 - May S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI - Final 51.3 vs 50.9 prelim; prior 50.0 Focus on Manufacturing (Briefing.com) - The May ISM Manufacturing Index checked in at 48.7% (consensus 49.6%), down from 49.2% in April. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%, so the May reading suggests there was a faster pace of contraction in the manufacturing sector last month. - The key takeaway from the report is that it showed a faster pace of contraction in manufacturing activity that will stir worries about the economy missing its mark with a soft landing. - The New Orders Index slumped to 45.4% from 49.1%, hitting its lowest level since May 2023. - The Prices Index dropped to 57.0% from 60.9%. - The Employment Index increased to 51.1% from 48.6%. - The Backlog of Orders Index fell to 42.4% from 45.4%. - The Supplier Deliveries Index held steady at 48.9%. - The Production Index decreased to 50.2% from 51.3%. - The New Export Orders Index rose to 50.6% from 48.7%. Fed Cuts - Not Happening - According to the latest issues of Barrons - "The Federal Reserve isn't likely to lower interest rates in 2024.  Elevated inflation, a resilient economy, and a still-strong, if softening labor market argue against the need for easing monetary policy, especially as these conditions are expected to persist through year end." WAIT A MINUTE - Rate cut bets for September are back a 66% probability after a slightly weaker than expected JOLTS report - 10YR Yields @ 4.35% (Down from 4.6% last week) GDPNow - Atlanta Fed GDPNow model estimate for Q2 real GDP growth is 1.8%, down from 2.7% on May 31 - Latest downward revision follows today's release of the ISM Manufacturing Index for May and Construction Spending Report for April. As Usual - Backwards - OPEC+ prolongs cuts for one year - OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to extend most of its deep oil output cuts well into 2025 as the group seeks to shore up the market amid tepid demand growth, high interest rates and rising rival U.S. production.

Short Week - 4 days of trading - then EOM The Miracle Flight - I have witnesses this with my own eyes Cruise anyone? Global Warming - New Info In 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATE - Show 700 Campaign Warm Up - Short Week - 4 days of trading - then EOM - The Miracle Flight - I have witnesses this with my own eyes - Cruise anyone? - Global Warming - New Info In Market Update - 40,000 ! Then we fail - Fed Officials Hawkish behind closed doors - BBQFlation - Split Excitement! - Hindenburg Omen Fed - Two Faced - Federal Reserve officials grew more concerned at their most recent meeting about inflation, with members indicating that they lacked the confidence to move forward on interest rate reductions. - Minutes from the April 30-May 1 policy meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee released Wednesday indicated apprehension from policymakers about when it would be time to ease. - The meeting followed a slew of readings that showed inflation was more stubborn than officials had expected to start 2024. BBQFlation - Your Memorial Day barbecue will cost upward of 10 percent more than it did this time last year according to Datasembly - Datasembly follows the cost of groceries across the country every week. Its recently released data points to this year's Memorial Day festivities costing the average American family about $30.18 or 10.19% more than 2023. - Burgers jumped from $7.04 in 2023 to $8.07 in 2024, or a change of 14.63% in cost. Hamburger buns cost two cents more, from $3.04 on average to $3.06. Hindenburg Omen - Indicator was triggered last week. - only right about 25% of the time - Was thought to be able to predict market crashes - let's see what happens. FED HEAD - The Federal Reserve should wait for significant progress on inflation before cutting interest rates, Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari told CNBC on Tuesday. - Asked what conditions were needed for the Fed to cut rates once or twice this year, Kashkari said: “Many more months of positive inflation data, I think, to give me confidence that it's appropriate to dial back.” - He said the central bank could potentially even hike rates if inflation fails to come down further. “I don't think we should rule anything out at this point,” Kashkari added. Could we finally get relief from these thieves? - The U.S. Department of Justice is suing to break up Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, over alleged antitrust violations. - The lawsuit, joined by 30 states and filed Thursday, follows a DOJ investigation into whether Live Nation maintains a monopoly in the ticketing industry, a probe launched in 2022 and bolstered by fan complaints following a botched roll out for tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras tour. - In a statement, Live Nation said the DOJ's allegations of a monopoly are "absurd." - "The DOJ's complaint attempts to portray Live Nation and Ticketmaster as the cause of fan frustration with the live entertainment industry. It blames concert promoters and ticketing companies—neither of which control ticket prices—for high ticket prices. It ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public's willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost," said Dan Wall, Live Nation executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs. DONATIONS- New Shirt Design? Miracle Flights - The 1986 Air Carrier Access Act requires airlines to provide a wheelchair to passengers with disabilities at the airport. The problem: Many travelers are faking it,

Big Week - Big Earnings on Wednesday Oil Unusually stable Helicopter Accident - Another "fog" incident? Meme stocks come back to earth 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATE - Show 700 Campaign Warm Up - Big Week - Big Earnings on Wednesday - Oil Unusually stable - Helicopter Accident - Another "fog" incident? - Meme stocks come back to earth - We have an Osbourne Effect Market Update - 40,000 ! Get the party hats! - ATH, ATH, ATH - Commods - Copper and Gold (AND silver) - VIX - lowest since 2019 - Someone better against Tesla (Big name) Banks - The Federal Reserve and two other U.S. regulators are moving toward a new plan that would significantly reduce a nearly 20% mandated increase in capital for the country's biggest banks following lobbying efforts by industry CEOs like JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend. - Required increases in capital for banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs meant to ensure they have sufficient buffers to absorb potential losses — would on average be about as much as originally floated, the Journal added. - Top officials from all three agencies involved in the pending capital rules — the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — are still discussing substantive and technical revisions and there is no guarantee that an agreement will be reached, the WSJ reported. Goodbye? - In a response to a question Monday about the bank's succession planning, Dimon indicated that his expected tenure is less than five more years - That's a key change from Dimon's previous responses to succession questions, in which his standard answer had been that retirement was perpetually five years away. - Stock dropped 4% on that conversation No Direction - Grasping .... - Snap Inc. Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said he's investing more aggressively in bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to Snapchat to make it more interesting for its users, the next major shift after years spent overhauling its advertising business. - “There was a recognition that we'd fallen behind the curve on the machine learning side, which, to some degree, was reflected in the business performance,” Spiegel said in an interview. “We needed to improve there and bring together some of our most senior machine learning folks to just talk about what it would look like for us to get to state of the art and really invest.” Meanwhile - VIX is sagging - The CBOE Volatility Index, which measures the 30-day implied volatility of the S&P 500, closed Friday at the lowest level since November 2019 as the benchmark stock index traded in a tight range just below the all-time high. - Aside from an April pop, the VIX has been muted for much of 2024 as shares climbed. VIX Chart Interesting - Online home goods retailer Wayfair is opening its first namesake store, near Chicago, following a string of other digitally native companies that have turned to brick-and-mortar for growth. - So they think the low cost failed execution is going to do better in the higher cost brick and mortar arena? - The company says people need to still sit in and try furniture.... (WHAT?) AI - Here we go - OpenAI has disbanded its team focused on the long-term risks of artificial intelligence just one year after the company announced the group, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC on Friday. - News of Sutskever's and Leike's departures, and the dissolution of the superalignment team, come days after OpenAI launched a new AI model and desktop version of ChatGPT, along with an updated user interface,

Emerging markets breaking out of long consolidation PPI HOT - Market does not care A Meme stock face ripper! 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATE - Show 700 Campaign Warm Up - Inflation reports PPI today and CPI tomorrow - Sentiment is dropping - wondering why - Meme stock face ripper - EV days - losses not acceptable - PPI and CPI this week Market Update - Another good week - seems like coming out of downturn - Rates down- 10Y Treas falling over past week - S&P 500 near record - Emerging markets breaking out of long consolidation - PPI HOT - Market does not care Fed talk - Fed's Goolsbee and Kashkari - There has been cross currents in the data. - There has been some bumps in the road on inflation in 2024. - The Fed is in a wait and see mode - Cautious about how restrictive policy is. - More data is needed before they can predict a rate cut. - There is a high bar for another rate hike, but not ruling it out. - Leases trending up is a concerning signal. ----- What does any of that tell us? ------ We need to start a movement to SHUT THE FED UP (STFU) Latest Inflation Readings - The Producer Price index for final demand increased 0.5% month-over-month in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) following a downwardly revised 0.1% decline (from 0.2%) in March. The index for final demand, excluding food and energy, also increased 0.5% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) following a downwardly revised 0.1% decline (from 0.2%) in March. - On a year-over-year basis, the index for final demand was up 2.2%, marking the largest increase since April 2023, while the index for final demand, excluding food and energy, was up 2.4%, unchanged from March. - The key takeaway from the report is that nearly three quarters of the increase in final demand prices was due to a 0.6% increase in the index for final demand services, something that will detract from the Fed's confidence that inflation is on a sustainable path to its 2% target. Powell speaking AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says he doesn't think next rate move will be a hike, more likely a hold; time will tell if policy is sufficiently restrictive; PPI reading was quite mixed Getting AI Overload - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says "not gpt-5, not a search engine, but we've been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love! feels like magic to me"  Sentiment - Consumer sentiment fell sharply in May to the lowest level in six months as Americans cited concerns about stubbornly high inflation and interest rates and fears that unemployment could rise - May Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment - Prelim 67.4 vs 76.5 Briefing.com consensus; April Final was 77.2 Fed Put - Markets melting up since last Powell comments - There is  a new spin on the old "Fed put." The latter rested on an unspoken assurance that the Fed would step in with easier policy to forestall a market meltdown. - The new version doesn't guarantee a rate cut soon, but it has created an unspoken assurance that market participants can trade around the idea that the next monetary policy move is likely to be a rate cut. Meme Stocks - Gamestock was up 80% and  many of the other names moving hard --- Seems like the original Gamestock dude - Roaring Kitty put out a tweet on Monday and the stock went bananas... More Squeeze - Shares of the vaccine maker soared 99% Friday, after the company signed a $1.2 billion licensing agreement with Sanofi that includes commercializing a combined Covid-19 and flu shot. - The move boosts a stock that had plunged about 99% — prior to the deal — from its 2021 peak amid waning demand for its Covid vaccine.

Earnings season - better and stats - BIGGEST BUYBACK EVER - We are gauging investor sentiment --- Remember - Confidence  and Sentiment (Cheer-leading helps) 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 Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATE - Show 700 Campaign Warm Up - Earnings season - better and stats - BIGGEST BUYBACK EVER - We are gauging investor sentiment -- --- Remember - Confidence  and Sentiment (Cheer-leading helps) - Announcing the WINNER  CTP for Apple - Fake Work? Market Update - If down - buy.... Names that were hammered due to earnings catching bids again - Follow up - Utilities - Fed Speaks - Can't stop the Dove - Employment - Excitement about the Unemployment Rate Earnings Season Update: - Overall, 80% of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported actual results for Q1 2024 to date. - Of these companies, 77% have reported actual EPS above estimates, which is equal to the 5-year average of 77% but above the 10-year average of 74%. - In aggregate, companies are reporting earnings that are 7.5% above estimates, which is also below the 5-year average of 8.5% but above the 10-year average of 6.7% - Eight of the eleven sectors are reporting year-over-year earnings growth, led by the Communication Services, Utilities, Consumer Discretionary, and Information Technology sectors. - Three sectors are reporting a year-over-year decline in earnings: Energy, Health Care, and Materials. - Revenue - up again - estimated to be 4.1% when all said and done. -  -    If 4.1% is the actual revenue growth rate for the quarter, it will mark the 14th consecutive quarter of revenue growth for the index. Fake Work - An investor at famed Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz is the latest VC to get involved in the debate around "fake work" in the tech industry. - Ulevitch went on to point the finger at Google specifically, calling it "an amazing example." - "I don't think it's crazy to believe that half the white-collar staff at Google probably does no real work," he said. "The company has spent billions and billions of dollars per year on projects that go nowhere for over a decade, and all that money could have been returned to shareholders who have retirement accounts." - Marc Andreessen has criticized a managerial "laptop class" and tweeted in 2022, "The good big companies are overstaffed by 2x. The bad big companies are overstaffed by 4x or more." Buy 'em - Companies that took a hit after earnings (NFLX, AMD) getting bid again - NFLX gapped lower from ~$608 to $551 and now $592 - AMD dropped from $160 to $140 and now $156 - SPY , IWM and QQQ- Now above the 50day Moving average again Follow Up - Utilities - Just wanted to provide this idea again - Data Warehouses and other AI Power hungry places --- Symbol list of some utilities to look at further - SO, NEE, EXC, CMS - Natural gas producers are planning for a significant spike in demand over the next decade, as artificial intelligence drives a surge in electricity consumption that renewables may struggle to meet alone. - After a decade of flat power growth in the U.S., electricity demand is forecast to grow as much as 20% by 2030, according to a Wells Fargo analysis published in April. Power companies are moving to quickly secure energy as the rise of AI coincides with the expansion of domestic semiconductor and battery manufacturing as well as the electrification of the nation's vehicle fleet. - AI data centers alone are expected to add about 323 terawatt hours of electricity demand in the U.S. by 2030 Utilities ETF Apple - Earnings - Nothing great in the earnings. --- A few pockets of sunshine.... --- Raises dividend and $110 BILLION buyback - largest buyback EVER ...