Susan li at bloomberg

the problem gets solved
slowly because you allow it to get solved
but even patience
needs hurrying along
sometimes
new heights of catholic bizarreness with a touch of paedophilia
i’ve seen a lot of things on the web, in its class this has to be the most extreme, rather amusing in its way
years ago in auckland , new zealand, i remember reading about this murder, no idea that he was a well known poet or the backstory
hai zi’s sonnet night moon
i don’t think you can be a good poet without a sense of injury
my rewrite:
the setting sun
striking through the trees
from a blood red lamp
everything is illuminated
in this ambiguous light
of suffering, joy, life and death
schooling cretinizes
starting with the teachers
there is nothing to be learned
not even process
all history teaches
poetry and politics don’t mix
ed. i was reading about li bai siding with the losing side in the an lushan rebellion, it was only his reputation that saved him from being executed
intersex
growing breasts
growing genitals
today’s obsession
lacks nuances
of being
.
intersex
growing breasts
growing genitals
today’s obsession
lacks nuance
about
being
the dead sea scrolls
so much fuss
about a lot of bad writing
intelligence is like everything else in having "opportunity cost", abilities in one area necessarily imply deficits in another
that is, in even high IQ’s you are also measuring disability
IQ only measures one type of intelligence and in fact i don’t think intelligence can be reduced to a score
i couldn’t even do an intelligence test now, my brain rebels at that sort of computation
in twenty years we are going to be nothing but a society shredded by the weight of side-effects from drugs; medical, psychiatric and otherwise
“ Use of amphetamines and atomoxetine had a higher risk for angle closure glaucoma, while use of methylphenidate was associated with a higher risk for open angle glaucoma
Given the prevalence of ADHD medication use (medically and recreationally), our current data on their associated risk of glaucoma have profound public health implications ”
good fiction ties itself to the way reality works even if its "magical realism"
poor quality fiction is utterly decoupled in this respect, egregious examples have to be propaganda and "dramas"
"it was unstoppable, like herpes on a lithuanian prostitute"
a finnish saying, apparently the trope for a woman from an ex-soviet country is a prostitute
if you look at their history you can see why they don’t like the russians
ninja
asian fantasy
the individual victorious against
coercive group think
death
is beyond
remedy
thinking
rearranges priorities
slowly
philosophers are crazy
mind games
word games
the vagaries of definition
simple cogency is not looked for
rather deemed inadequate
not finding what they are looking for
they waste their lives uselessly
waves of the sea lapping on the shore
has more meaning
creeps
make jokes
about
dead
mothers
saying something about nothing
the problem is
they interpenetrate
up on the hill
working on the water tank
voices carried in the wind
in the distance
two women on horses
ed. its really just to capture that hearing something and not understanding the source, then a bit later seeing where the voices come from
its very minimal which i think is "zen"
.
up on the hill
working on the water tank
voices carried in the wind
in the distance
two women on horseback
"decoherence" and "emergence" are relatively new concepts in physics and and basically on one side you have things being very simple and on the other you have the complexity and uncertainty of the real world and in between you have a mixing of things up so the simplicity is lost/decohered and replaced by opacity/emergence as to what is happening
i was looking at some quotes from emily dickinson’s letters to susan gilbert (her one time lover and sister-in-law) and they are conventional in the main, but one poem sticks out as indicating she really had a different head on her shoulders
show me eternity and i will show you
memory —
both in one package lain
and lifted back again —
be sue — while i am emily —
be next — what you have ever been —
infinity
love
separated
doesn’t last
we don’t take the lesson
look further and farther appears
when
it wasn’t there before
.
look further and further appears
when
it wasn’t there before
mRNA vaccines can alter our DNA
dr. julian fidge
i must use my keyboard a lot because i wear out letters, but rather than replacing the keyboard (microsoft) i now overwrite them with pink nail polish using relatively thick strokes taking up the whole pad and sometimes even over the edges
robots of flesh
humans
perhaps something else intervenes
it does
charlatans
take two
the deceiver
and deceived
one at least has the benefit of honest gain
the other broken shards of a dream
who is who ?
ed. giacomo casanova who was a hustler of timeless stature said : to deceive a fool is to revenge intelligence and in my view he is right because the nature of the injury to the victim is non-repairable so the focus has to be not being fooled rather than some falsely benign view of the universe where wrongs are supposedly righted today’s cultural glorification of victimhood is itself a form of con artistry giving permission to that endemic dissembling, now so normal, especially in gen X, you can’t talk to a young person without being awash in highly skilled manipulation and targeted deceit
carlo rovelli gives a much better explanation of nagarjuna than the usual religious obfuscation (translators usually try to fit him to every paradigm going) “ what is useful in nagarjuna is the idea that its better to think of the world not as entities or substance or matter that has its own properties, but only through the interdependence of things
everything is empty in the sense of not having an intrinsic reality, this emptiness is the foundation of everything — but that’s a view which is itself empty in a sense ”
i would put it a bit differently, that there is always some context that can’t be escaped and this is the background for existence, that non-existence is a type of existence as well as existence being a type of non-existence
gen Z, missionaries for their churches of one, not even a quorum to be formed to schism
synthesizing nonsense to make more nonsense
i have long since ceased to think the world is sane

I have watched this show from day one. Brooke, Stephanie, Caroline, Beth, Kristin and Margo were all written as strong characters… 3 dimensional, capable, multi-talented. What have the writers reduced them to now?
Brooke: Once an organic chemist, then CEO of Forrester… she now is wringing her hands over her kids and simpering to an insufferable Ridge. This is not the “destiny” I would have written for Brooke.
Caroline: At least she got to DIE WITH DIGNITY with her morals and scruples still intact!
Steffy: OMG if there ever was an opportunity to build a strong, complex character, this was it! Instead we get an insecure, bitchy woman who is supposedly co-CEO … who spends all her time bashing her step-sister Hope and whining to her ex-husband Liam. If you compare her dialogue to her namesake Stephanie… the writing is just shameful.
Li: As a supporting role, Li had a huge weight to carry. Not only was she blindsided by the reveal that Sheila was her adoptive son’s Mother, but she also had to deal with the betrayal that she ended up adopting her husbands affair baby! The actress knocked it out of the park in these scenes… and then turned into the most one-dimensional bitch imaginable! 🙈
These actresses (actors) always deliver, but they are given 💩 to work with!! Where are the writers that wrote for Susan Flannery!?!
The actors and the audience deserve MUCH better!

行善的专制制度会比民主制度带来更好的结果吗？自从去年夏天听到受过高等教育的肯尼亚人对我说，民主制度并没有带来他们迫切需要的经济发展以来，我一直在思考这个问题。他们高度称赞现代新加坡的国父李光耀如何在一代人的时间里，将他贫穷的城邦国家转变为地球上最富有的社会之一。
想一想，1960年新加坡和牙买加的人均GDP大致相同，都是约425美元（据世界银行的数据）。到2021年，新加坡的人均GDP已上升到72794美元，而牙买加的只有5181美元。难怪李光耀已经成了一名民间英雄。在南非、黎巴嫩和斯里兰卡，不难发现有人祈盼当地也能出个李光耀。
上个月，拜登总统主持了他的第二次民主峰会，并发表了关于民主与专制之间宏大的全球斗争的演讲。与美国有伙伴关系的新加坡未获与会邀请，在“自由之家”的国家评级中，新加坡被评为“部分自由”。但华盛顿关于民主必要性的谈话要点忽略了一个简单的事实：一些专制领导人因为他们取得了成效而受到钦佩。
虽然成熟的民主国家在经济上的整体表现优于专制国家，但少数把注意力集中在经济增长上——而不是他们自己的瑞士银行账户上——的专制领导人，在发展方面超越了新兴的民主国家，哥伦比亚大学法律与商业荣休教授罗纳德·吉尔森说道，他2011年与人合作发表了论文《经济上行善的独裁者：民主制发展中国家的教训》。奥古斯托·皮诺切特领导下的智利、朴正熙领导下的韩国，以及邓小平领导下的中国都是实现了全面经济转型的典范国家，而脆弱的民主国家在经济上则停滞不前。
这篇论文的另一作者是斯坦福大学法学院的柯蒂斯·米尔豪普特，文章详细阐述了为什么行善的威权主义者更容易将他们的国家融入全球经济。精英们往往抵制会触及他们自身利益的大变革，即使这些变革是对国家有利。专制领导人手中有更多的工具来获得精英的支持。专制领导人的一句话就能让创造就业机会的投资者放心，他们的企业将受到保护，这弥补了法律制度不健全的空缺。在行善的专制制度下，合法性通常不是来自选举，而是来自于展示人民的物质生活得以改善的能力。在民主国家，领导人往往忙于应对政治挑战，无暇制定宏伟的经济计划。他们经常在看到这些计划实现之前就因败选下台。为了赢得选举，政客们做出短期的承诺，比如减税的同时增加福利，从长远来看，这些承诺并不总在经济上是合理的。
但行善的专制制度也有致命的缺陷。行善的独裁者并不常见。而且也不能保证他们会一直行善，或者他们的继任者会有同样的能力。国家的经济成功转型后，专制制度的优势似乎也将消失。但到那时，高层权力几乎不受制约的制度已经根深蒂固了。
新加坡就是个例子。据1998年出版的《李光耀治国之钥》(Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas)一书记载，李光耀曾声称，人民并不渴望民主。他说，首先也最重要的是，“他们想有房子、有医疗条件、有工作、有学上。”通过将来自西方的亲商政策（可预测的法院、低税收、对腐败零容忍，以及奉行精英领导体制）与来自专制国家的社会主义倾向政策（政府大量参与经济规划、几乎不容忍异见）结合起来的办法，李光耀满足了这些需求。他建立了一个庞大的公屋系统，约80%的新加坡人现在居住其中。民众从政府手里购买可交易的公寓长期租约，用的钱基本上是政府强迫他们储蓄存下的。新加坡也有选举，但控制着大部分媒体和大量赚钱工作机会的执政党自从独立以来一直当政。
任何去过这个有近600万人口的城邦国家的人都会看到，这里感觉比美国更干净、更安全、更有秩序。新加坡机场同时也是个高端购物中心。公园里鲜花盛开，没有垃圾、扒手或露营的无家可归者，后者已成为美国城市里常见的景象。抢劫如此之罕见——监控又如此之普遍——以至于一些高端酒吧甚至夜里都不锁门。法拉利和兰博基尼到处可见，仿佛“家家有鸡吃”的口号变成了“每个停车位上都是跑车”。
但现在，在李光耀去世八年后，新加坡正处在一个十字路口。现在管理着这个国家的总理李显龙是李光耀的长子，他在很大程度上依靠的是父亲留下的政治遗产。新加坡预计将于9月举行总统选举，那主要是个仪式性的职位；议会选举将于2025年举行。总理的潜在继任者已挑好。但执政的人民行动党看起来前所未有地脆弱。
批评人士称，新加坡正变得越来越像一个富豪统治的国家，与李家保持着良好关系的唯唯诺诺者升官发财。在今天的新加坡，叉车操作员能因收受一美元的贿赂而面临牢狱之苦，而据美国司法部调查，新加坡企业集团吉宝的高管们行贿数百万美元却逃脱了惩罚，仅受到“严厉警告”。（新加坡官员称，他们没有足够的证据将此案交由法庭审理。）
问题在于，这个制度需要像李光耀那样的人担任最高领导人，他严厉但有魅力，正如《新加坡：一部近代史》(Singapore: A Modern History)一书的作者迈克尔·巴尔对我说的。“但如今，拥有那种政治技巧的人无法升到最高位置，因为他会被视为一种威胁，”他说。
也许新加坡出问题的最明显迹象是，李光耀的二儿子和一个孙子说，他们现在流亡海外，担心如果回国就会被抓起来。
“我伯父不想在合法性问题上有竞争，”李光耀的孙子李绳武在马萨诸塞州坎布里奇一边喝茶一边对我这样说。“威权主义制度存在下去靠的不是冒险。如果他们认为我有5%的可能成为他们的麻烦，他们要把这个概率变为零。”
讽刺的是，现年38岁的哈佛大学经济学助理教授李绳武并没有政治野心，他刚刚获得了他所在领域的一项最高荣誉。他说话温和，富有理性，他说自己喜欢在一个没有人会因为他与李光耀的关系而给予特殊待遇的地方做学术研究。在牛津大学和斯坦福大学读了十年书后，他已经习惯了某些自由。
2017年夏天，他回新加坡探望父母时在Facebook的一个私帖下发评论，批评政府用法庭噤声批评者。政府“非常爱打官司，而且有一个顺从的司法系统”，他写道。不久后，他得到消息，自己将因此被起诉。他急忙回到美国。即使特朗普政府对待移民的态度非常糟糕，他当时也对登上美国的土地感到欣慰，他告诉我，因为他知道美国有独立的法官。新加坡法院在他缺席的情况下判他犯有藐视法庭罪，判处1.5万新加坡元（约合7.6万元人民币）罚款，而且五年内不得竞选国会议员。
新加坡官员上个月宣布，警方正在对李绳武的父母展开调查，他们被指控操纵当时90岁的李光耀修改遗嘱，并事后在这件事上撒谎。这项指控源于对李光耀故居趋于激化的分歧，李光耀生前多次公开表示，希望死后将他住过的房子拆掉。
李光耀的二儿子李显扬表示，他一直在努力实现父亲的遗愿，不要围绕着故居搞个人崇拜。但他说，担任总理的哥哥想把这栋房子留作一处国家纪念馆，以巩固他本人的政治合法性。李显扬公开反对兄长而遭到了调查。最终，他和儿子一样逃离了国家。这似乎是从事文化研究的新加坡教授陈思贤所说的“越来越老练的欺凌政治”的一个例子。从本质上讲，这不是一场有关故居或遗嘱的斗争，而是关系到新加坡的未来。
“新加坡的机构，无论是司法、公务员、军队、高等院校，都逐渐受到扼杀独立思考和挑战的直接控制，”李显扬对我说。他表示，李光耀会征求不同意见，偶尔也会改变想法。“今天，新加坡政府里不再有人会挑战这个制度，会说，‘这是我的观点。我不认为你在做正确的事。’他们的工资太高了。”
（政府发言人何文欣否认李显扬和李绳武在流亡，称他们旅行持的是新加坡护照，有回国的自由。她还表示，李显龙总理回避了涉及故居的案子。）
李显扬和儿子李绳武在他们一生中的大部分时间里都曾躲避政治，但自从围绕故居的争吵进入公众视野后，两人都对政治反对派表示了同情，用他们的姓给反对派增加了至关重要的合法性。然而，他们帮助反对派的能力遭到了他们所受指控的削弱。这一事件暴露出新加坡的著名体制出现了裂纹。如果连李光耀的儿子和孙子都觉得他们要被迫逃离的话，那么普通人会发生什么呢？
政治学家并不确定新加坡高度成功的体制是否会在李光耀死后持续下去。在他临终前，就连这位伟人自己也说过，要为他的政党失去权力的那一天做准备。这就是行善的专制制度的问题所在：它们往往会终止。要么它们不再专制——就像韩国和智利发生的那样——要么它们不再行善。
https://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20230424/singapore-autocracy-democracy/

From Khalil Menaf Hegarty, note that an Australian dollar is worth about 65 cents. I also won’t double indent:
“There are a series of economy-wide, labour-related problems in Australia that policymakers appear incapable of tackling in a coherent way.
First up, this is a very good summary of some key national indicators around Australia’s per capita recession.
The story here is a good entry point to what is happening on the ground, but I’ll try and summarise.

- Left-leaning state governments have embarked on major infrastructure projects (and require significant public debt); - These projects require minimum pay requirements that are effectively endorsed by construction unions; - Costs and wages tend to blow out for these reasons (and I don’t want to get into the public debt conversation here); - As noted in the story, the wage demands are quite significant. (AUD240k = approx. USD160k) 

At the same time:

• Significant labour shortages in teaching, healthcare/nursing, law enforcement and the defence forces;
• A housing crisis, with a massive shortage of homes, prompting house construction targets;
• An inability to meet house targets because of the labour shortage;
• Immigration as both the solution to a labour shortage, problems for the housing crisis, and a spiral for both.

Perhaps this is a similar situation to Canada (as per your April column), but perhaps the problem is more acute because we don’t have access to the US labour market in the same way.
So, my questions are: What’s wrong with Australia’s economy? Is this precedented? What would you do about it?”
TC again: Perhaps we need new and better models for this kind of situation!
The post What is the problem in Australia? (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/warren-buffett-built-berkshire-what-happens-when-he-s-no-longer-there/ar-AA1nGYvR
Story by Andrew Bary
Warren Buffett will be at center stage, as usual, during Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. But investors are increasingly looking for clues on what the company will be like when the longstanding CEO and chairman is no longer running it.
Berkshire could come under pressure to break itself up when the world’s most acclaimed investor exits the stage. It might decide to pay a dividend rather than amass cash, as it does today while Buffett, 93, waits for investing opportunities. Buffett can expect to face questions on all these topics and more at the annual meeting on May 4 in Omaha, Neb.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime friend, business partner, and Berkshire vice chairman, who died last year at 99, won’t be at his side. Munger’s absence will only reinforce the obvious: Buffett’s time atop the conglomerate he built over six decades could end during the next few years. Even Buffett acknowledges as much, writing in November that he felt “good” but was “playing in extra innings.”
For some 30,000 Berkshire shareholders expected to attend the meeting, the future will be the focus as Buffett fields questions for more than five hours in what could be his only public appearance of the year. Joining Buffett on the dais will be Vice Chairman Greg Abel, 61, likely tasked with the role of Buffett’s successor as CEO, and Vice Chairman Ajit Jain, 72, who runs the company’s insurance operations. Together they will answer questions small and large: Can the stock beat the S&P 500 index? Why have share repurchases declined since 2021? Can the company’s new management prove anywhere as capable as Buffett? Should Berkshire break up?
But really, everyone will be focused on the same thing.
“Whether it’s said out loud or not, succession is front and center on the minds of investors,” says Cathy Seifert, a CFRA Research analyst.
There is nothing like Berkshire. It has had an extraordinary run since Buffett took control of a struggling textile maker in 1965 and turned it into the world’s largest conglomerate, with nearly 400,000 employees and U.S.-centric businesses that offer one of the best reads on the health of the economy. Some of its largest divisions are the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad; Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which operates a multistate electric utility business that is one of the largest producers of green power in the country; and the world’s biggest property and casualty insurer, including Geico, the No. 3 auto insurer.
There are smaller units, such as NetJets, the leader in private jet travel; Clayton Homes, the top maker of manufactured housing; Benjamin Moore paints; Dairy Queen; and one of the largest real estate brokerage businesses in the country. Then there is a $360 billion equity portfolio led by Apple, which accounts for about 40% of Berkshire’s holdings. There also is what Buffett calls a Fort Knox balance sheet, with nearly $170 billion in cash and equivalents.
Berkshire isn’t run like other conglomerates. It is unusually decentralized, with Buffett leaving key decisions at subsidiaries largely to the managers of the individual companies. He wrote in the Berkshire “Owner’s Manual” in 2017 that “we delegate almost to the point of abdication.” Berkshire has a tiny headquarters staff of 26 with no corporate counsel, investor relations, or public relations staff.
Berkshire’s unusual strategy has worked. The company is expected to generate $40 billion of after-tax operating earnings this year and has a market capitalization of $880 billion, the seventh-largest in the stock market. The company’s Class A stock has risen to over $600,000 a share from $20 (there have been no stock splits along the way) since Buffett took over in 1965, and holders who bought the now widely held Class B shares when they were created in 1996 have seen that stock rise 20-fold. It’s one of the most widely held stocks by individuals, with some three million shareholders. Probably no other company elicits the passion and loyalty of its investor base. Big institutions have never appreciated the stock as much as individuals.
But will they continue to, once Buffett is no longer running the show? So central is Buffett to Berkshire’s business that four or five people will take over the role that he maintained until 2018, when he delegated responsibility for Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses to Abel and the insurance operations to Jain.
Abel is due to become CEO, which involves overseeing Berkshire’s vast array of businesses and likely determining capital allocation, a critical role at the company that Buffett has performed so well for nearly 60 years. That means deciding whether to use earnings to repurchase stock, pay dividends, build cash, or make acquisitions. Jain is likely to remain head of the insurance business, while Buffett’s older son, Howard, 69, a farmer and philanthropist, probably will become nonexecutive chairman.
Then there are Todd Combs, 53, and Ted Weschler, 61, who now run about 10% of Berkshire’s equity investments and probably will run the entire portfolio. Berkshire doesn’t say which stocks in the equity portfolio are run by Combs and Weschler, but Berkshire watchers think that many of the smaller holdings—under $4 billion—are theirs. These include Charter Communications, DaVita, Liberty Sirius XM, Amazon.com, Snowflake, Visa, and Mastercard. Buffett hasn’t commented on their performance relative to the market since 2019—when he said they were slightly behind it since joining the company more than a decade ago. We estimate that both are probably lagging behind the market since their tenures began, given the underperformance of some of their rumored holdings in recent years.
Investment manager Bill Smead, who heads the Smead Value fund, would like to hear from Combs and Weschler. “Not introducing Todd and Ted is an unforgivable sin. If Warren dies tomorrow, they are the stockpickers, and they have never answered or been asked a question at the annual meeting.”
Combs is a key member of the Berkshire bench and could be a backup to Abel as the Buffett successor or a potential successor to Abel as CEO. Combs has a good rapport with Buffett and has experience beyond investments as CEO of Geico for past four years and as a JPMorgan Chase board member. One candidate to succeed Jain as head of the insurance operations is Joe Brandon, who runs Alleghany, an insurer that Berkshire bought in 2022.
Buffett’s three children, Howard, Susan, and Peter, will be in the mix after Buffett’s death since they will oversee a charitable trust that will hold Buffett’s now 15% economic stake in Berkshire, which has voting power of over 30% because it consists almost entirely of supervoting A shares. The Buffett stake will allow the children to wield considerable power, at least for several years, as the trust will liquidate over about a decade.
While Buffett acknowledges that he has slowed down in recent years, he looked sharp at the 2023 meeting. He talked for five hours, fortified with a Coke and peanut brittle from See’s Candies, a Berkshire company. He showed command of all things Berkshire, the economy, and financial markets, both past and present. He is the last of a breed. Three years ago, there were four Berkshire directors age 90 or over—all longtime friends of Buffett—and they all are dead: Munger, David “Sandy” Gottesman, Tom Murphy, and Walter Scott. Smead says that without the outspoken Munger to prod him, Buffett may be more restrained at this year’s meeting.
That won’t stop investors from peppering him with questions. How long do you expect to run the company? What do Berkshire’s slowing stock repurchases say about your views on the stock? Can Geico, which has slipped behind Progressive in auto insurance market share and technology, catch up? Would Berkshire walk away from its Western utilities and let them go bankrupt in the face of wildfire liabilities? Do you think it will make sense to pay a dividend once you’re gone?
Buffett says he expects tough questions. “That’s the way we like it,” he wrote earlier this year.
“There will be more discussion of the possibility of a dividend at some point in time,” says Ted Bridges, CEO of Bridges Trust, an Omaha investment manager. Buffett has conceded that buying public and private businesses is tough now, given higher valuations. And Berkshire handicaps itself by refusing to participate in corporate auctions. The dividend issue arouses passion among many individual Berkshire holders who don’t want them, in part for tax reasons.
An important question, asked or not, is what will happen to Berkshire shares when Buffett steps down or dies. They may take a hit of perhaps 5% to 10%, as longtime holders cash out and investors worry that the Buffett magic will disappear. Buffett, though, has said he thinks the stock will go up on the day after his death as investors anticipate a value-enhancing corporate breakup.
There’s a case to be made for a breakup. It’s the world’s biggest conglomerate at a time when conglomerates have fallen out of favor, with the likes of General Electric and United Technologies having broken up in recent years. For all of Buffett’s investment acumen and business smarts, Berkshire stock is about even with the S&P 500 as measured by total return over the past 10 years and 20 years, Bloomberg calculations show. The stock has returned 12.4% annually over the past 10 years, against 12.5% for the S&P 500. Buffett has said that Berkshire needs to top it over time or investors should consider looking elsewhere.
All the massive outperformance came in Buffett’s first 40 years at the helm, when the company was smaller and Buffett had a particularly hot investment hand, scooping up big stakes in companies like Coca-Cola and American Express at cheap prices. Size, too, is an impediment to outsize returns.
Buffett hasn’t had a lot of new winners in the past decade. The company’s largest acquisition—the 2016 purchase of Precision Castparts for $33 billion—has been a bust. Buffett has had some misses in the stock market, selling a group of financial stocks including Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase in 2020 and 2021 at about half their current prices. Of course, Apple has been a huge win with Berkshire’s stake, now worth over $150 billion, compared with a cost of around $30 billion. But the iPhone giant is having a rough 2024, and its stock is down more than10% year to date.
Berkshire shares look like a good bet to match or beat the S&P 500 even after Buffett leaves the scene. The stock now looks appealing, valued at 1.5 times its projected March 31 book value of nearly $400,000 per Class A share and for 22 times estimated 2024 earnings. (Berkshire is due to report its first-quarter results on May 4.) Berkshire is slightly expensive relative to its five-year average of 1.4 times book value. The stock is ahead of the market this year and over the past five years.
Book value is an old-fashioned valuation measure but is still relevant for Berkshire because of its large insurance operations—insurers still get valued on book—and because it has been a historical yardstick for the company since Buffett took over.
Buffett chooses to focus on intrinsic value but doesn’t disclose his estimate of that figure. Buffett has said that book value is a greatly understated proxy for intrinsic value, although share repurchases at current prices do reduce book value, somewhat undercutting the use of that measurement.
Post Buffett, Berkshire’s stock is likely to be supported by steady growth in its earnings and shareholder equity over time. The company appears capable of high-single-digit annual growth in book value based on $40 billion of operating income after taxes and gains in the $360 billion equity portfolio. If the stock keeps pace with the growth in book value, it could show similar share price growth.
A dividend is a good bet within a few years of Buffett’s death. Why? It will help his successor disburse some of the annual operating earnings. Another reason is that investors won’t be so tolerant of Berkshire holding so much cash—a record $168 billion at year-end 2023—without Buffett at the helm.
Christopher Bloomstran, chief investment strategist at Semper Augustus Investment Group, wrote earlier this year that Berkshire stock could generate a 10% to 11% annualized return over the next 10 years, with annual share buybacks in the 2% to 3% range—above the recent rate of 1% to 1.5%. He pegged intrinsic value at around $720,000 a share.
UBS analyst Brian Meredith is one of the few Berkshire bulls among Wall Street analysts. He recently lifted his price target to about $722,000 per Class A share from $715,000. He sees improvement at both Geico and Burlington Northern. Berkshire is one of the most defensive big stocks in the market, given its balance sheet and earnings power. A market selloff could offer opportunities for Buffett.
Buffett is firmly against a breakup. He argues the conglomerate structure has numerous attributes, including tax benefits from the ability to quickly make use of any big catastrophe losses at Berkshire’s insurance companies. Buffett has expressed confidence in the company’s future, writing last year that “Berkshire has been built to last.” And the company’s Buffett-friendly 14-member board—including two of Buffett’s kids—is well aware of his views.
“Berkshire has been run with enormous transparency, integrity, a long-term orientation, and a culture of stewardship. It is run by the greatest investor in history. That’s the present,” Chris Davis, an investment manager and Berkshire board member, told Barron’s last year. “As for the future, every activist and investment banker will argue that in a world without Warren and Charlie, Berkshire’s unorthodox structure shouldn’t persist. I think it’s worth defending.”
Whatever the questions, Berkshire shareholders will savor the annual meeting, knowing there may not be many more with Buffett at the helm. As for the stock, many may heed the advice of Munger, who said that “they should keep the faith” rather than sell after he and Buffett are gone.

yeah title says it all. Meta beat their quarterly earnings but stated the following for forward guidance
“Meta says it will see second quarter revenue between $36.5 billion and $39 billion, falling short of midpoint estimates of $38.24 billion.
In addition to the downbeat Q2 forecast, Meta CFO Susan Li raised the company's full-year total expenses estimate from a range between $94 billion-$99 billion to between $96 billion-$99 billion due to higher infrastructure and legal costs.”
Tesla had a massive earnings miss but accelerated their plans to roll out their line affordable EVs so their stocked spiked. For the record i’m still a TSLA bear.
I both laugh and SHM at all the reddit posts on why xxx stock beat earnings but dropped 10%.

Hey guys,
I'm back with some of the best longform profiles I've found this week. You can also subscribe here if you want to get the weekly newsletter in your inbox. Any feedback or suggestions, please let me know!
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🎭 Michael Imperioli Knows Art Can’t Save Us
Zach Helfand // The New Yorker

Art can help. But if we don’t make big changes in terms of how we’re affecting the climate, everything else is going to be a luxury. When we’re constantly underwater or on fire, every issue is going to become secondary to that, which may very well happen. Unless things start to change, we’re seriously fucked. Let’s be honest.

💔 Sophie Grégoire Trudeau on Her New Memoir, Her Separation, and Making Her Own Way
Mattie Kahn // Vogue

She felt trapped. Grégoire Trudeau had had to give up her career when Trudeau became prime minister. Her cousin still bristles at the warped expectations. Justin Trudeau had been heralded as a champion of working women. When his own wife wanted to contribute, she was pilloried. His ascent cost her her profession. “She was put in an impossible position,” a Canadian journalist tells me. “She was just stuck.”

🍤 The Whistleblower
Ian Urbina, Maya Martin, Jake Conley, Joe Galvin, Susan Ryan, Austin Brush // The Outlaw Ocean Project

At the plant in India, he would find himself covering up overcrowding on the site by making plans to hide workers when inspectors came around. He found himself misleading customers about the provenance and quality of their shrimp, including its certification status or farm origin, and he said he was told to send off consignments of tainted shrimp to America. Managers who worked for Choice Canning could be frustratingly evasive, he added, but, at times, they could also be startlingly candid. He captured his dealings with them in secret recordings, screenshots and thousands of pages of documents.

🪖 Life as a Russian soldier in Ukraine — what the British insider saw (🔒 paywall link)
Sean Langan // The Sunday Times

When we finally enter the forest, the bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers lie slumped like sacks of grain, empty water bottles by their side. Figures stand up and emerge from the tree stumps. I didn’t notice them at first but the forest is full of Russian soldiers, hiding in the same bunkers and trenches the Ukrainians recently abandoned. A young man climbs out of his foxhole and fist-bumps me.

🚀 Inside Y Combinator’s ‘Boom Loop’: The Startup Factory Goes Brasher, Leaner And Meaner (🔒 paywall link)
Alex Konrad // Forbes

In the year-plus since, Tan has worked to win them over by reshaping YC in a “return to roots,” as he describes it. That has meant reconfiguring its batches, from admissions to groupings and social activities, to restore its status as a mecca for earliest-stage, technical (mostly nerdy) founders to learn the basics of company-building over three months. From a new headquarters in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, Tan is projecting YC’s influence within the city like never before — alongside his own — through a push for more public content and events, interspersed with Tan’s own local political activism.

📚 The Chaos Inside Diddy’s Charter School
Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz // New York Magazine

Fourteen people, including parents, students, and former employees, describe an extremely dysfunctional school environment marked by high teacher turnover and frequent violence. Without a full teaching staff, students could go months without being taught some subjects and instead be found sitting in the lunch room for hours at a time.

🏀 The Legend of Caitlin Clark: How the Superstar is Writing the Next Chapter in Iowa Women’s Basketball History
Deyscha Smith // SLAM

Could Clark, or anyone who knew her during those early days, have ever imagined that she’d become the greatest college basketball player Iowa has ever seen? Or, arguably, the greatest in the college game today, man or woman? What about the way she’s transcended the sport—not just women’s basketball, but the game entirely.

🏭 An Empire Divided (🔒 paywall link)
Brooke Sutherland, Ryan Beene // Bloomberg

In one sense, Culp is restoring GE to its original identity as a maker of stuff. But he’s also the guy dismantling a monument to American capitalism. From its inception as an outlet for Thomas Edison to commercialize the lightbulb through the era of rapid globalization embodied by Jack Welch, GE practically swallowed entire industries. It loaned planes to companies and money to real estate developers; for a time it even owned a large chunk of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. Most of that is gone now.

🕰️ The Hotel Guest Who Wouldn’t Leave (🔒 paywall link)
Matthew Haag // The New York Times

The story of how Mr. Barreto, a California transplant with a taste for wild conspiracy theories and a sometimes tenuous grip on reality, gained and then lost the rights to Room 2565 might sound implausible — another tale from a man who claims without evidence to be the first cousin, 11 times removed, of Christopher Columbus’s oldest son.

🌈 Alan Cumming Wants Us All to Let Go
Rachel Syme // The New Yorker

I’ve always felt like New York’s not really America. I do wonder when the time will come when I feel too uncomfortable to live here, to be queer and to be also an immigrant. Being queer in any way is going to get more and more difficult. I’m going to Texas tomorrow with my show. When I go out on the road like that, it’s so heartening, because you go to these places where the government or the legislature is doing such heinous things—just awful, angry stuff. But not everyone’s like that.

🖖 93 Years of Shatner
Kevin Mims // Quillette

Had Shatner been born in 1962 rather than in 1932, he would have been reaching his prime just as the so-called “second golden age of television” arrived with the debut of The Sopranos in 1999. His approach to television would almost certainly have been very different than it was back in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. He might have taken his place among actors like James Gandolfini (born in ’61), Bryan Cranston (’56), Bob Odenkirk (’62), and Jon Hamm (’71), all of whom embodied iconic characters of the era. Instead, Shatner is often unfairly written off as a second-rater.

🗣️ On Fox News, Steve Doocy has become the unexpected voice of dissent (🔒 paywall link)
Jeremy Barr // The Washington Post

Doocy lately seems to enjoy sparking hot-button on-screen debate at a time of day when television viewers are accustomed to light banter and soft segments. And he’s doing so in an era when Fox’s sway over the direction of the Republican Party has never been greater. With most other Fox hosts now rallying behind Trump’s 2024 campaign, Doocy’s presence suggests hidden pockets of pushback at the network.

👠 She Was Born to Be a Supermodel. She Wants to Build a Literary Empire, Too. (🔒 paywall link)
Josh Duboff // The Wall Street Journal

Gerber is aware of the benefits of being a nepo baby. “I don’t think it’s a topic that will go away, so I’ve clearly reached a point of acceptance,” she says. “I personally am very aware of all the wonderful things it has done for me, and I would never, ever say anything negative about it, because that is my truth about it.”

📺 Why Dick Wolf Wants To Make Hit TV Shows Until He Is 100 (🔒 paywall link)
Matt Craig // Forbes

For now, Wolf believes “the imminent death of broadcast television is overstated,” as it remains the best place to reach 10 million people in a single night. He wants to add even more network shows, and truly become TV’s “last man standing.” Still, he’s a realist. “Once it’s gone it’s gone,” he says. “I think there's another 10-12 years of broadcast before it's basically all streaming.”

🎸 ‘When I was younger I was arrogant’: Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on fatherhood and growing up
Shaad D'Souza // The Guardian

“When the band was starting, I was obsessed with getting [second album] Contra out in 2010 – I thought it was important that we released albums back to back – it was so rushed. There was a real feeling of: ‘This is a rare opportunity,’” he recalls. “To continue at that pace and with that level of agitation would send anybody to burnout. And then you get into these existential things: if all you’re doing is making music, what’s the music about?”

👨‍👩‍👧 Dr. Becky and the Professionalization of Parenthood
Kathryn Jezer-Morton // The Cut

Kennedy says her conviction that something was wrong with modern parenting came before she could articulate much more of what would become the Good Inside philosophy. She often repeats that children are born with the entire range of human emotion and none of the skills required to cope with it. In the world of GI, a parent’s job is to teach those skills not through instruction but by modeling them. Parents are invited to experience parenting as a personal transformation. In the argot of our times, it’s parenting as emotional upskilling.

👜 Will She Make the Next Birkin?
Marisa Meltzer // The New York Times

“I was looking at a book that was talking about pockets in the 19th century, how men had about seven pockets in their jackets, pockets in their little vests and pockets in their pants, and women could have only one pocket that they had to hide under their skirt. And that was kind of the beginning of emancipation of women. When skirts became smaller and tighter to the body, they just took the pocket up from under the skirt and put it outside.”

🐶 Miranda's Last Gift (🔒 paywall link)
David Frum // The Atlantic

But Ringo intuited that something unusual was happening in his world. This dog that normally put the high in high-maintenance abruptly reinvented himself as a wholly different animal. He quietly accompanied Miranda through every frightening minute. He attended all of her preoperative appointments, right up until the final seconds before she went in for surgery.

🌟 Anne Hathaway on Tuning Out the Haters and Embracing Her True Self
Julie Miller // Vanity Fair

Even though she had won an Oscar, she says, “a lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online. I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.”

👵 My Mother Was the Keeper of Our Memories. Then She Got Dementia. (🔒 paywall link)
Sherry Mendelson // The Wall Street Journal

Complete silence as she looked me over. And then, the loss hit me as it registered that my mother didn’t know me. I had to let go and come to terms with the reality that my mother—the woman who knew me longer and better than anybody—was no longer there. Her memory, which held a unique part of me, had vanished. I was becoming a different person—floating and undefined, unmoored, motherless though she was there in front of me.

***
Longform Profiles: Depth over distraction. Cutting through the noise with weekly longform profiles that matter. Subscribe here.

Welcome to the Peanut Gallery! Today we should all just take a deep breath.
Please remember that I know nothing.
Israel:
Bombs fell on Iran. The consensus seems to be coalescing around drones as the primary vector of attack, something I wasn’t even aware the West had in quantity. It’s all just rumors, of course. We know jack-shit, which is why I don’t have much of a source today. I could point to hearsay, or some article, but it’s all basically the same: Israel hit Iran, and Iran looks to be taking it on the chin.
I hope this will end the tit-for-tat pattern of escalation. I very much doubt, however, that it will be the end of this awful affair, because there’s another rumor bouncing around: that Israel is going into Rafah.
What’s left of Hamas hides within the Palestinian refugees. They are the roots—the last, true vestiges of the evil organization, and to really finish this will involve digging them out.
I think...God help me...I think I agree with Netanyahu; this war only ends with the complete eradication of Hamas. The Israeli people deserve to live in peace and security, even if it means exposing one-hundred and fifty thousand civilians to the ravages of war.
There are plans, of course, mitigating efforts to ensure the sanctity of human life, but no amount of effort will make this a bloodless task. The coming days and weeks will be difficult. The information war will be...rough, and so when you face it, when it swirls around you with lies and distortions, know that our cause is Just because we care. We care about the Palestinians, and we care about the Israelis, and we care about them because they are human and human life is sacred. The West is making a hard decision, but it’s one necessary to build a better world, a safer world for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Keep to that ideal.
Ukraine:
Now let’s talk about Ukraine, yeah?

The Russian military has been generating forces at rates equal to its losses in Ukraine in recent months, and intensified monthly recruitment rates are unlikely to generate a considerable surplus of manpower for Russian operational- and strategic-level reserves.
Russian forces have maintained and even intensified offensive operations this spring, and these offensive operations will continue to consume a significant amount of manpower that could otherwise be used to form reserves if Russian forces sustain their current offensive tempo. Russian forces are therefore unlikely to establish extensive reserves ahead of their expected summer 2024 offensive effort. The limited remaining time for Russian forces to prepare for the expected summer offensive effort will likely mean that any additional manpower added to reserves in the coming months will be poorly trained and less combat effective.

We’ve all heard about Putin’s big “summer offensive”, right? The one where he’s supposed to sweep across the Donbas and finally shatter Ukraine’s spine? Yeah that’s some vatnik cope.
It’s April. To mount another offensive will require a mobilization surge the likes of which has not yet materialized. And if Russia intends to mount this imaginary offensive, then they need to be drafting people now. As in today. Training takes time. The longer they delay the less capable their army will be, so unless Russia intends to send the folks they picked up in their spring conscription, Putin will launch his summer attack at present strength. And as we saw in Avdiivka and Bakhmut, that's not enough.
See, that’s the issue with maintaining a constant offensive tempo. In most wars there are lulls in the fighting, weeks when nothing happens because both sides pause to take a breath. The Kremlin doesn’t work that way—they’ve been on one form of offensive footing or another since the Ukrainians paused their own offensive some seven months ago. Such a grinding effort chews through manpower, and we’re seeing signs Russia may be reaching its limit.

Bloomberg noted that Russian regional one-time payments for signing a contract have increased by 40 percent to an average of 470,000 rubles ($4,992), and a Russian insider source claimed that some Russian authorities are offering one million rubles ($10,622) for people to sign military contracts.
Russian officials are reportedly concerned about decreasing recruitment rates and may intend to make economic incentives a cornerstone of crypto-mobilization efforts in spring and summer 2024.
The Russian MoD claimed on April 3 that more than 100,000 Russians had signed military service contracts since the start of 2024, but intensified Russian crypto-mobilization efforts are highly unlikely to generate an additional 200,000 personnel ahead of the expected Russian offensive effort in summer 2024.

Eventually you run out of the stupid and the greedy.
I recall back in August the one-million-ruble offering was a big deal exclusively for Muscovites to serve in “elite” units, but these days it’s just the right half of the bell curve. There’s a point where money hits diminishing returns and the Kremlin seems to have found it. Cash, patriotism, and fear are the three main ways a nation encourages volunteers to sign contracts, and without said volunteers the Kremlin’s got nobody to shoot their fleeing conscripts.
Plummeting recruitment figures present the Kremlin with quite the dilemma. Russian patriotism hasn’t worked since...well, it never worked. And now money’s failing so I guess that just leaves fear.

Russian milbloggers seized on a violent crime committed by a migrant in Moscow on April 18 to reiterate calls for further restrictions in Russian migration policies.
Russian news outlet Mash reported on April 18 that an Azeri migrant killed a Russian man in Moscow and fled the scene.[24] Russian milbloggers largely responded to the murder by calling on Russian authorities to further restrict Russia’s migration policies and extend punishments for crimes committed by migrants.[25] Russian milbloggers warned that if the Russian government fails to respond to violence committed by migrants, Russians will be forced to “take matters into their own hands.”

The Kremlin is doing untold damage to their nation’s future by allowing the cancer of hate to spread. They are inflaming their labor shortage and driving a rift between Muscovites and a good two-thirds of their empire. Take it from an American: racism leaves scars.
Central Asian migrants take note: this language preludes a genocide. To kill a man one must first dehumanize him. That is what is happening now. Words become hate, hate becomes law, and law becomes death.
Seriously, folks. Read Maus. It’s an important book.
I find it tragically ironic that the Kremlin invaded Ukraine under the false pretext of a Nazi government in Kyiv, meanwhile day-by-day their own nation sinks into fascism. It seems like everything is projection with these people.

Ukrainian officials continue to warn that Russian forces are systematically and increasingly using chemical weapons and other likely-banned chemical substances in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Support Forces Command stated on April 5 that Ukrainian forces have recorded 371 cases of Russian forces using munitions containing chemical substances during the last month and 1,412 cases of Russian forces using chemical weapons between February 2023 and March 2024.

Please give Ukraine what they need to bring this war to an end.
/TheNuttySpectacle:
I’ve got a work function I need to attend tomorrow evening, which means I won’t be available to make the usual post. If anyone wishes to fill in, the floor is open, otherwise I’ll see you folks Saturday! Try not to blow anything up while I’m gone, or if something does detonate then be sure to get it on video. I don’t want to miss it.
‘Q’ for the Community:

• Fascism is a mindset, one which is far too easy to fall into. It starts with fear, which leads to hate. Do you see signs of rising fascism in your own neighborhood? If so, what are they?

• Join the conversation on /TheNuttySpectacle!

What we're watching
📷 Stocks still stung by inflation: Stocks slid over the past week as fears sticky inflation may prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates gripped markets.
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For the week, the Nasdaq (^IXIC) fell nearly 0.6% while the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) slid more than 1.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank almost 2.5%, driven by a slump in bank stocks on Friday as quarterly earnings reports failed to impress investors.
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More updates on the state of corporate America will greet investors in the week ahead. Results from Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Morgan Stanley (MS) will round out earnings from big banks while reports from United Airlines (UAL) and Netflix (NFLX) also highlight the week. ‌
In economic news, an update on retail sales in March is scheduled for Monday in what's expected to be an otherwise quiet week for economic data.
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📷 Rate cut hopes are fading: Last week we noted continued stronger-than-expected data from the labor market had an increasing number of economists questioning if the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in June. After another week of inflation data that showed price increases aren't declining as quickly as many hoped, many economists now see the Fed holding rates steady until at least the fall.
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The economics teams at Bank of America and Deutsche Bank, which had previously seen easing starting in the early summer, now believe the Fed will cut for the first time in December, meaning just one total cut for 2024.
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Consensus is now pricing in two interest rate cuts this year, per Bloomberg data. And Deutsche Bank chief US economist Matthew Luzzetti noted that even that more tempered outlook might not come to fruition in 2024.
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"Further disappointing inflation data or an election outcome that delivers fiscal stimulus and / or policies that could lift inflation (e.g., trade or immigration policies) would argue for no rate cuts this year and into 2025," Luzzetti wrote.
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📷 Consumer report card: With consensus now seeing the Fed holding interest rates higher for longer, economists will continue to watch closely for any signs that the resilience in the US consumer is dwindling.
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A fresh reading on that trend is set to greet investors on Monday with the March retail sales report. Economists expect that retail sales increased 0.4% in March from the prior month. This would extend the rebound seen in February after retail sales sank 1.1% in January.
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"We do not think consumer spending is poised to slow meaningfully, especially as wage growth remains solid," Wells Fargo's economics team wrote in a note to clients. "Real-time credit card spending data show consumer outlays remaining above their pre-pandemic trend in March."
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📷 Bank earnings show guidance 'risk': The first set of earnings from some of America's largest financial institutions did little to impress investors. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) all reported declining net interest income during their quarterly reports.
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JPMorgan maintained its 2024 net interest income guidance of $90 billion, but analysts had expected guidance to increase in a range of $2-$3 billion, per CNBC.
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More banks, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley, are expected to report earnings early next week as investors continue to track how higher interest rates are impacting the financial services sector.
Chart of the day: It's all about demand
Entering the first full week of quarterly updates for the first quarter, Wall Street strategists have their eyes on how specifically companies are driving earnings growth.
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Over the past year, many companies utilized layoffs and other tactics to keep margin growth intact while demand lagged. Strategists are looking for that narrative to change this quarter for the market rally to continue and earnings growth to support recent signs of an accelerating US economy.
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"You're kind of at the point of the cycle where you really need to start seeing revenue growth inflecting higher, and if you don't that's going to become more of an issue," Charles Schwab senior investment strategist Kevin Gordon told Yahoo Finance. "Companies that cut labor costs aggressively last year via layoffs, you can only do that for so long. Eventually you have to see actual demand come back into play."
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S&P 500 revenue for the first quarter is expected grow 3.4%, below the 10-year average of 5.1%, per FactSet data.
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Given the market's recent slump on fears inflation's downward path may have stalled and the Fed could cut rates less than expected, how this earnings season plays out will be increasingly "critical" for the market rally, according to BlackRock global chief investment strategist Wei Li.
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"Earnings have come to the rescue because markets are up year to date, despite the hawkish repricing," Li told Yahoo Finance. "So we'll see if earnings will continue to come to the rescue of hawkish repricing, even as the bar has increased as well for earnings."

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The Camporee went really well, if a bit of an initial clusterfuck. I got woken up by Princess licking my face, and demanding walks. I got up, and a bit bleary-eyed, made coffee. Wasn't the same as New Orleans, but it would work for the moment, and I got washed up, changing into gear for the weekend, sneakers traded out for my hiking boots. Some messages from Dad, but nothing that required immediate attention. A ton of texts from Darryl about various stuff, and a message from Aimee to see if I could meet her before I left for the weekend. Easy enough to do.
I got Princess her walk, and stopped off at Plaid to get some stuff, as well as a beef stick for her highness. Wait... Reaver had turned into tools last night. I'd been in deep focus while I'd been working, but as far as I'd known, it only turned into weapons. It had turned into various objects, and I hadn't really paid attention to that at the moment. Reaver itself hadn't known it could either, but when you came down it, it made more sense it wasn't limited to weapons. Sure, weapons were useful, but a shield could protect life, and tools could build needed structures. Reaver had been constructed to save a failing empire, not necessarily to destroy its enemies. It had only taken the weapon forms based on its owners. With me, I didn't need or want weapons, so it altered itself to what it saw I did need.
It had interesting implications, but I didn't really have time to screw around with it and work out the limit. I had other issues: A couple of drivers were going to run late for the pick-up at the church, and we needed to come up with a solution. Remembering who had which vehicles, I re-sorted kids and adults, and got something at least duct-taped together. The sleeping bags had been checked by the boys to see if they were there, but not if they were fully functional, and several boys were missing basic stuff like mess kits. Mr. Bethel was picking me up in his van, so I let them know I could replace what was needed, and just get them into the trailer.
More hopeful, the tents and chuck boxes were ready to go, so that was taken care of. We would need to pick up extra propane for the camping stoves, but that was always going to be a part of the thing. I had Fred run me by Dick's at the Town Center, since this was potentially going past where Fred Meyer was reliable. He'd been hard at work, bringing together lists of the various charity organizations around Portland, and an up to date list of shelters, which ones were day shelters versus overnight shelters, and marked which ones were attached to what charity or government group.
He'd also been talking with various homeless people. There was a distinct problem: A lot of the homeless refused assistance. I didn't really get it, but Fred explained. Centrally, the homeless had gone through so many failed programs, so many false hopes, that it was easier to just reject the help out of hand, than it was to potentially lose what little they did have on someone's pipe dream, or get it yanked away to some asinine provision. That was gonna be a big obstacle, but there was little I could do about it in the current moment. The mall sale hadn't quite gone through yet, so I had no way to offer a more permanent solution.
Princess had a moment of barking at Samson, who took one look at the puppy in front of him, and barked back once, then pawed her over. Understanding of the power structure firmly secured, Princess took to following Samson around. We'd need to work on her dog etiquette when I got back.
I got everything, plus some extras, just assuming that some of the boys would have forgotten to mention something missing, and while I was at the mall, ducked into Barnes & Noble to grab some books on basic Sociology, as well as coffee and puppaccinos all around. I managed to get to the school just in time for it letting out and got a little precious time with Aimee.
It wasn't enough time, but I had a lot going on, so I arranged to come over for dinner Sunday, took some kissing time, and headed off. I was just pulling back in with Fred when Mr. Bethel pulled up with the trailer. I put my backpack in the van, just in front of his ATV, then got Fred to help me load up the trailer. I did a last run-through of the house, and checking over everything, we were ready to roll. Mr. Bethel's van had been rigged for hand controls, allowing him to run both gas and brakes on the steering wheel. He was super-excited for the hunting weekend coming up, and went over stuff while we got over to the church for final call.
A couple of boys ran late, and trying to keep everyone in line while we waited on a Friday was a full-time job. Finally, with everyone accounted for, we got going.... and then had to pull off, cause one of the drivers had forgotten to get gas. I was using a group of walkie-talkies to talk to a designated person in each car, so we could talk quicker and easier than having to call on the phones, and finally, we pulled in to campsite.
Once everyone was parked, and boys were rounded up, I opened up the trailer, and faced the group, "Alright, guys. We've got a lot to do to get camp ready before dark, but first, I brought some gifts with me."
I broke out the boxes, and opened up the first one. Red wool BSA jackets, and began passing them out. We'd had everyone's shirt sizes at the beginning of the year, and then box two had base layers for everyone. Box three was loaded with BSA boonie hats. The guys went nuts, throwing on hats and jackets pretty much immediately. I was just happy everyone was on-board with it.
From there, we took the trailer to our actual site, and off-loaded everything we would need. I did have to take everyone through putting up the tent, and then, my own built, moved around the troop, making sure everyone had theirs together. It was, strictly speaking, more work getting the tents up than the old ones, but the other side of it was that they looked awesome. We grouped everyone by patrols to keep organization simpler, with our main campfire in the middle of camp, and broke out chuck boxes while Russ went with the Tenderfoots to get kindling, and show them what made for good kindling and firewood. Me and Russ got our own tent along the side of the campfire, and I got moving on dinner as soon as I could. Tonight's dinner was pretty simple, burgers and fries. Russ did his thing with putting together fruit punch, and hanging a lamp in the tent, then went to check on everyone else while I got some time to myself.
The next morning, we all swore out a bounty on our bugler, in jest... well half-joking, and the adults learned my most important new skill: I could make really good coffee. We broke up patrols and teams for different events, and Russ did notice I wasn't on any of the teams. He went to say something, and I just shook my head. I was having a good time anyway, and the important point was getting together with other Scouts, not feeding my ego. While everyone else was out doing their events, I worked on stuff for merit badges. I got signed off on a bunch of badges, not least of which was cooking and woodworking. One of our female leaders, Ms. Owens, shed a tear about her son Robby being so damn happy with his new gear. She talked about it with Mr. Bethel, they'd wanted to get him better stuff, but it was just too much.
I felt good and bad. Good that I could help, but bad that the help was needed, even so close to home. I got to feel better as the day went on. My troop was cleaning house at events, placed first multiple times, and at least top three for the rest. Chef's Smell was mostly an honorary, but I'd worked with the guys: Mojo Pork, maduros, and elotes, with a caramel flan for dessert.
Due to people abusing Chef's Smell, bringing in specific custom ingredients for just the competition, a hard rule had been passed that whatever was being entered into the competition had to be cooked for the entire troop, not just the competition. It kept some of the more asinine shit at bay, like making filet mignon and lobster tail. As long as we could produce it for everyone using what we had at camp, though, we were in the clear. I took Russ through the pork, which needed time to marinate, while I explained flan to the younger ones. Maduros were mostly a matter of the cook itself, rather than needing a ton of ingredients, and the only other remaining point was the rice that would be served with the pork.
It wasn't 'fancy', but it was great cuisine, and I took to directing everyone, making sure we were starting cook times to roll it out together, rather than cobbling together a piece at a time. The effect, however, was pronounced. I'd taken that talk about seasoning in New Orleans to heart. People could smell our campsite from a ways off, and it was kind of awesome in and of itself. They were getting it, with me just giving direction, and the occasional guiding hand from an adult. Everything put together, we assembled the dishes for the troop, using them as effective guinea pigs. That way, when we did our dish for the judges, we knew we had it. When the judges came by, the troop was fully ready, and Russ explained the mojo pork, Robby talked about the elotes, the maduros and flan had the tenderfoots, and they launched into their spiel, though I did have to step in to get them to stop talking over each other. I said nothing in correction: This was their time, and I couldn't let my 1% overpower the effort they'd all put in. It paid off, and we took first place, it wasn't even close.
I had a great weekend, and got in on Sunday just in time to head over to Aimee's. I snagged the extra ingredients we had left over from the cooking, and remade the dish for her and her Dad. Her dad, when he'd originally heard I was going to cook something, was worried I would make some insane gourmet food, but he didn't strike me as the type to go for it, so I decided to stick with what I'd taught everyone else to do. It was a great weekend, and I only wish it could've lasted longer.
Monday, however, took a decided left turn. Miguel had arrived and was going nuts on my Bloomberg Terminal, so I let him take it to his office, and we got a call from Beth, who wanted to ask if it was alright if she brought some of her team with her. I didn't see any particular issue there, and if I could get a team that already knew how to work together well, all the better. And then there was the line: Dozens of people were waiting at the office, queued up in front of Susan's desk. She looked plenty frazzled as me and Dad came in the door, "Uh, Susan, real quick: Who are all these people?"
She took a moment staring at me, "Apparently, they're your employees!"
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The study into Reaver was kind of fascinating. The first thing I'd learned was that the powers I had noticed in Reaver were not the only powers that it held. I made notes on each of the powers:
Short-Range Teleportation- Teleportation within a range of sight. There were several limitations that kept it in the E-Tier. The power itself didn't augment anything else, so you had to train with it to get over the displacement sickness it caused. It had limited range, so even if I could see something off in the distance, I couldn't just immediately port there. On top of the training needed to effectively utilize it without hurling, and the range limitations, I also could not go through solid objects with it. While it might be considered an awesome power, its limiters are what brought it back to E-Tier.
Black Tendrils- Produced black tendrils from either hand that could wrap around a person or object. They could be manipulated by the user, but were limited to the strength of the user, and since they came out of the hands, you can't be holding anything in your hand. I'd been able to exploit that myself, and as well, had a hard range limit of 10 meters, just over 32 feet. Still useful, but again, the limitations of the ability kept it safely low-threat weighed against higher-tier abilities.
Agility Boost- Augments the agility of the wielder. Tim hadn't been all that agile, but with this had been on my level of agility given my 1%. That was the limiter on this one, that it wasn't superhuman unless you maintained a top-level of agility to start from. For most people, to top out this ability, you have to spend your life in constant training.
Fear aura- within its radius, the power overloaded the fight or flight response of everyone in the area. This was powerful, sure, but it was the AoE problem. You couldn't discriminate, so any allies or bystanders in the zone were humped as well. Its range was a radius of just over 15 meters, or 50 feet, and as with the teleportation, it didn't go through solid objects.
Those were the powers I'd already essentially known about at the point of the fight, but that was only half the registry of powers in the bracer. Reaver had taken eight heroes out, and some things still remained:
Prey scent- Once I "locked in" a scent, I could track it pretty much forever until I released it, caught them, or they found a way to break the scent marker. This was one of the tracking abilities that had helped it find me and other heroes, to get them alone. No practical combat use outside the niche, but it would be useful in the law enforcement sense of crime-fighting.... also when I lost my keys or wallet, not that that comes up a few times.
Technopathy- Ability to communicate with and manipulate digital devices. Its limiting factors were sort of robust. For instance, you can't just 'do anything' with it, you have to essentially know what you're doing with the device, so yeah, I "could" try to communicate with a nuclear bomb, but lacking any key knowledge of how to activate anything within the system, I wouldn't be able to do much, though I could potentially shut one down by hitting the wrong passcode a few times. Next up, computers speak in coding language, so unless you're about to spend your life learning every computer code in use, again, you're kind of limited on that. Yeah, you could use most phone apps, and that was how I'd been ultimately tracked by my phone through the H.A.A. app, along with Reaver being able to listen to the mic on my phone, since those were mostly on the whole time to allow for things like voice controls and marketing crap.
Finally, the two 'broken bullshit' powers:
Spatial Cognition- In terms of an individual power, this was... not great. I mean, don't get me wrong, it has a ton of various uses, but it's pretty much just the top-tier of spatial awareness. On it's own, it had uses, but it was low E-tier. Hook that power to something like the teleportation, and scent ability, and it got way more OP. With teleportation, absolute spatial awareness was a fundamental concept of the ability, to be able to gauge the exact distance you were porting over and readjust on the fly. With scent, I could fully determine direction and distance of the scent trail.
Sensimotor Synchrony- Oh... fuck this power. This is insane hooked into the other abilities. Okay, so as an isolated power, its only function was to remove the "lag time" between thought and action. Reaction speed increases by leaps and bound, since you can literally now move at the speed of thought. It had combat applications, but without other powers to feed off of, it was mostly a defensive measure. Attached to other powers, it was a broad spectrum boost to everything. Instantly lock on scent, instant boost on agility, increased manipulative control of the tendrils, and I'd directly seen its use with the teleportation and spatial awareness abilities.
Any of the individual abilities were very limited in scope of power, either directly, or by the limitations of the ability, but as a whole, they'd turned Reaver into a killing machine. There was another issue, however, a bit more minor, but it did suck a bit- While I could get better at using the powers, they didn't actually interact with my 1%, since they were an outside force operating through me. I was essentially just the vessel being used by Reaver to be able to access the powers.
The H.A.A. wanted me to hand Reaver over for destruction, and I did get it at a certain level, but Reaver's alive. It thinks, it feels, and its sins were not its own. It was never given an understanding of any version of proper morals and ethics, and did what it thought it was supposed to do. Just like if Princess were raised in a dog fighting ring, Reaver only knew war, only knew fighting. I'm... I'm not okay with the concept of killing it.
There was more to it, though. Reaver had referenced the ancient Heros of Greek and Roman times. For a moment, I considered something: It knew enough about what powers were to absorb them. That wasn't a fluke ability as far as I could tell. That would state that there were enhanced in the life and times of Rome and Greece, because why make a function for a thing that doesn't exist? It would be like the Romans building anti-aircraft weaponry. If there's no aircraft, there's no reason for the weapons to fight it. It was magical in nature, and that stated there was magic in those times, enough to make Reaver. So where had all the magic and powers been the past thousand years or so?
This put me on a different track: Technopathy. It was an odd power that could only be relevant in the digital era. If powers were attached to something so ancient, why was there a power like this? It was so dated to modern times that it would've been barely functional until about the late 1900s. I got a sinking feeling as the 1% kicked up the theory that there was something behind all of this, back then, and the last ten years. Something was coming, and I had no way to prepare for it.
As to Reaver itself, it didn't really have reliable information outside of its users' personal perspectives. It had simply taken everything they thought and felt as the absolute truth of the world. While I could establish an essential chain of custody of it, Reaver itself didn't have much in the way of provable evidence of anything. Living to thirty in the Dark Ages of Europe was, in itself, not as simple as now, and Reaver had been in the hands of violent men and women, who had an even higher propensity to die before that line, and if no one was holding it, Reaver had no perception of anything, so there were big gaps. Reaver did have names, however, so I wrote those down, sending them off to PSU's history department, since the university was right in downtown. I could look it up myself, but that would mean a lot of time having to learn a ton of different history, spread across centuries, with random twists and turns. Yeah, I could do it, but I would have to divert off of what I was doing in the here and now.
Okay, let's get to work. We had an office now... not a ton of employees, but we had people. We listed Darryl, Brad, and Aimee as interns, paid interns, but interns. They wouldn't be able to help much with school on and the whole 'child labor' issue, but it kept them in the flow of things, and as a secondary point, it gave them something to put on college admissions forms and essays. They were put over to the game development side of things, since that was mostly safe as far as laws were concerned on the matter. I was also working in the game development amongst other things, and with technopathy now a thing for me, I decided the best thing to do was, in fact, learn every coding language currently in use. JavaScript first, followed up by HTML/CSS, the top two most used languages that existed.
Fred was being trained to help setup the non-profit arm, acting as a community liaison with the homeless of the city. The knew him, at least somewhat, and people could tell the difference between someone like Fred trying to help them, who knew the real struggle, and someone like me, who might mean well, but had never gone hungry, had never had to convert a bus stop into a temporary shelter. Dad was working as the head of the real estate arm, since that was closest to his area of expertise, while Brad's Mo- Susan worked as the line of communication between us all. She was doing a lot, and I felt a bit guilty about that, so my tiramisu production went up.
I was sitting in my office- That would take some adjustment- with three computers. One was a laptop, so I could work on the go, then a gaming rig that I was using to do coding, and finally, the Bloomberg Terminal. Once Dad had understood what I could achieve with stock trading, this had been his first goal. From this single terminal, I could monitor every market, news group, and industry in the world in real-time, and it gave real-time updates on basically anything that could affect the markets. I did have to get used to the three-screen setup of it, but I mean, I'd been essentially doing that with doing livestreams on video games, so I was at least a third of the way to mastery. I couldn't code yet with the technopathy, but just the ability to communicate with the computer allowed me an insane capacity for analyzing the information contained in the terminal display, and with my Syncing ability attached, I could execute trades instantaneously as soon as soon as I needed to, far faster than simple clicking and typing. For its part, Reaver found the whole thing fascinating, advancing its learning of the world and people by leaps and bounds, balanced by my desire to help.
I realized quickly that I'm fucking dangerous. Yeah, sure, I could be a badass in a fight, I'd gotten right with that point, but in an arena that was entirely based on your ability to research, respond mentally and immediately, I actively affect trade on a global level if I just decide to. I wasn't kidding about the traders getting antsy about short-selling. In studying, I realized how fucked the global trade markets were, mainly through two specific problems: Short-selling, and Stock Buybacks. Shorting stocks is a racket: You borrow someone else's stock shares for a specified length of time by contract, sell them to drive down the stock price, and then buy them back at the lower share price, passing them back to the guy you borrowed them from in the first place, and pocketing the difference.
It should have been considered market manipulation, and in fact had been until the 80s. The point of stock investing was to invest in companies with the idea to see the stock improve over time. Shorting stock was the opposite, a naked attempt to drive the stock under, and profit on misery. So yeah, fuck those guys. It didn't even take all that long to get the traders to back off it, because stock traders only did it because it generally worked. By buying stock in shorted companies, I could drive up the price up, while getting legitimate stake in multiple companies. This crashed the short-selling, because once the time limit is up, you have to buy back the stocks, regardless of price. So yeah, if the price per share is higher than you sold it at, you're gonna need to pony up the dough, Bucky.
All the information I was using to do this was publicly traded information, it wasn't a secret. And calling it market manipulation wasn't exactly a great direction either, because if you did call for it, you would have to prove that it was manipulation. From there, you really opened yourself up- For one, you had to admit rather publicly that your entire trading group got clowned by a fourteen year old boy who downing Nesquik at the time, and in trading society, you might as well slit your own throat. Then, there's the counter problem: You couldn't accuse me of market manipulation, without me having the open shot to counter that it's you doing the manipulating. In fact, that was part of the plan, to pursue it so hard that either they tapped out on short-selling entirely, and made regulations against it themselves, or decided to come after me about it, and take it to a court, where I could try and force regulations against it that way. Side note: The companies that are being shorted love me.
Stock Buybacks were a whole other thing, a really detestable practice, where essentially, you beef up your stock price ahead of earnings reports in order to make it look like your company is doing better numbers than it is, and could even make it look like the company was actually prosperous while being fundamentally fucked. Countering was pretty easy, actually. All you had to do was the following: Get enough stock in the company to get a quarterly earnings report (They're required to give it to you as an investor), find the information they buried knowing that their investors wouldn't fully read it, and then just make sure all of them found out about it, that their stock prices were artificial, and could plummet at any moment, for the company to then re-sell the bought stock to post a "profit" on the next report.
Think the federal government's coming for your fiddly bits? Wait til you see the investors in your company realize you've been playing them in a financial shell game for several years. The government'll fuss at you and maybe make you pay some money. The investors, however, are out for blood. But hey, we got enough for the mall, and... huh, wait, did I...
Well fuck, I own a small solar company now. RIGHT, they were shorted out to the nines, so I'd managed to buy up like 80% of the stock as investors dumped out to get out of the damage pad. Gonna have to figure out what to do with that. Right now, I gotta flood the Oregon Food Bank with enough money to feed everyone surf n' turf for a month, and more importantly, Aimee's got new jeans that she says I need to check out.
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ANALYSIS:

• A look at the major news I guess today which is dragging semiconductors lower, and that is the AMD INTEL news. This is that China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead.
• I think any dip we see off of this is going to be a welcome buying opportunity, and I will be keeping my eye out for entry on AMD. This guideline extends only to Government PCs. Not all PCs in China. I think there is fear mongering in the market and social media on this, but on the facts of it, it’s not that big a deal. The guidelines also went after MSFT, but traders are not so worried about them. Positioning still shows bullishness growing on AMD, but anticipation of probably a consolidation first.
• Regarding oil gold and FX markets, we see Dollar pare some of its recent gains this morning. We can still se more FX volatility, but for now the EURUSD has held the 1.08 support.
• Oil moves higher on dollar weakness this morning and on geopolitical risks. We have see skew move slightly lower as traders take profits at 83 WTI at end of last week after dollar moved higher, but overall positioning still bullish.
• Similar picture with gold, some profit taking at end of last week, but we see traders firmly bullish on Gold still.
• If we look at Europe for a second, we see that FTSE is pulling back this morning, as is GER40. This is merely because they are stuck below key gamma levels. FTSE stuck below the key gamma level at 7900, but skew still moves higher, adn we see positive call delta growing on 8000, which points to traders still looking increasingly bullish.
• To US, we see traders continue to sell vol. we might not see big move higher today as skew is lower, but we probably won’t see big move lower either.

DATA LEDE:

• Dutch GDP final revision, comes better than expected and previously reported at 0.4% QOQ, vs forecasts and previous reading of 0.3%
• US New Home Sales (Feb)
• Dallas Fed Mfg Index (Mar)

MARKETS:

• SPX slightly lower today, Trading at 5215, after close on Friday at 5232. Was flat during asian session, now headed lower during European session. Will try to find some support at 5200.
• Nasdaq: - down a bit more than SPX as semis are under pressure today. Was at 18,340 on weekend, now at 18,227
• Dow: Trading most flat of the 3 indexes, at 39,400.
• Ger40: Down v slightly, at 18,200.
• FTSE 100 - coming of best week since September. Trades down today, by 0.35%, back below the 7,900 level.
• Nikkei lower as Yen rebounds a little on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention. Down 1.1% at 40,316.
• HKG market slightly lower at 16,430. Still trading out fo the recently formed uptrend.
• GOLD - slightly higher again on weaker dollar, back at 2171.
• Oil shifts higher, above the 81 mark as USD dips a bit in the morning, and on geopolitical unrest in Ukraine and Russia and Rising attacks on energy facilities in Russia.

FX:

• Asian FX rebounds. Chinese Yuan has been following Yen. We saw Yen rebound this morning on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention and that they ere closely monitoring. (Note this sent Nikkei lower)
• AUD slightly higher following stronger CNY and on weaker USD.
• EURUSD holds above 1.08 support as USD trims gains on profit taking.
• AUDUSD trading at 0.654
• EURUSD holds 1.08 support, trading t 1.0823 GBPUSD follows EURUSD, back above the 1.26 level.
• USDJPY at 151.35, tested 151 then moved higher.

INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH:

• Goldman tells investors to look beyond the MAg7 in the US to the GRANOLAS in Europe.
• MUFG says that BOJ officials and other Japanese officials will use verbal intervention to help to dampen further USDJPY upside in near term.
• Standard Chartered says that the fact that JPY remained weak after first rate hike should encourage BOJ to hike further. I’m not 100% sure on this, I do think that BOJ will limit hikes but can use intervention against JPY weakness.
• BBH says that USD can go higher in near term as they do not see fed delivering 75 bps of cuts. Said economic growth is encouraging and financial conditions are already very loose so don’t see fed cuts.
• This comes after BOSTIC SAID HE NOW PROJECtS JUSt 1 RATE CUT LATER IN YEAR.
• Envestnet shares similar sentiment saying that market is overexcited on 3 rate cuts and first in June. They didn’t interpret Powells comments to imply rate cut in June.

MAG7 news:

• AAPL - vision pro set for 2024 launch in mainland China, says Tim Cook. Apple will ramp up R&D investment in China.
• AAPL - next update to iPhone operating system, ios18 is reportedly considered to be biggest update to iOS since original iPhone.
• AAPL, GOOGL. And META probed by EU under new Digital Law - EU say Apple failed to make some apps uninstallible.
• MSFT - China guidelines aimed at AMD and INTC also seeks to sideline Microsoft’sWindows OS and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options
• TSLA, META - Tesla now advertising on Meta’s FB for the v first time.
• TSLA - downgraded at Mizuho to neutral, price target 195. Down in premarket.

COMPANY SPECIFIC NEWS:

• UAL shares are down as US FAA increases overweight on the company. Said to mull limits on new routes for United after safety incidents.
• INTC and AMD down on this news.
• AMD - INTC - China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead. Intel and AMD's significant sales in China at risk; Intel saw 27% of its sales in China last year.
• Note this is just to do with GOVERNMENT PCs. It’s not that big a deal.
• Semis are all widely lower on this news.
• CMP down as US forest service halts contract with CMP for 2024 fire season due to safety concerns
• TPX - price target raised to 75 from 50 by loop Capital.
• NiO - Mizuho downgrades to neutral, price target 5.50
• Mizuho widely downgraded the whole EV industry, including Tesla, Nio and RIVN
• FL - upgraded at Evercore ISI to overweight. Up on this news.
• IR - will buy ILC Dover for $2.33B upfront plus earnout.
• JCI - apparently seeing buyer interest for their HVAC assets
• SMCI - JPM initiates at overweight, price target 1150. SMCI outperform by Northaldn Capital too who have price target 1300.
• DIS - Barclays upgrades to overweight, price target 135
• RRX - Keybanc maintains at overweight, price target raised to 210
• Novo Nordisk strikes deal worth up to $1.1B to expand cardio business.
• ADM - paid bonuses to senior executives, even as they are in midst of government investigation.
• BA - largest union is seeking a seat on the Boeing board.
• Sony lower as Japanese market closes lower.
• Xiaomi showrooms start deploying the vehicle.
• MMM - Wells Fargo stick to hold rating.
• Nissan said they will look to address extreme market volatility with 30 new models and EV cost cuts.
• European home improvement group, Kingfisher, dropped 3% after issuing third warning on profit in 6 months.
• Chinese food delivery company, Meituan jumped 10% to highest level since November on news that they are continuing o increase investment in China’s consumer market and tech research.

OTHER NEWS:

• Bostic predicts just 1 rate cut, and now sees it later in the year than before.
• Cost to protect against a drawdown at record lows - very little headwinds and risks seen by investors in this market.
• As mentioned in separate post, forward inflation swaps are pricing in higher April print on inflation, then back lower again.
• HSBC raises year end SPX target to 5400 from 5000. Bears capitulating.
• Global Geopolitical unrest:
• Russian media outlets report shooting in concert hall in Moscow, people being evacuated
• 2nd blast reported there too in concert hall.
• 40 dead.
• US say Ukraine not got anything to do with it. As does Ukrainian presidential adviser
• Russia was forced to cancel all weekend mass gatherings
• Putin says attackers tried to escape towards Ukraine, but were caught and detained. Not Russian citizens Putin continues to link them to Ukraine. Said a passage was prepared for them from Ukraine side.
• Ukraine officials report Russian air attack on Kyiv.
• Polish army spokesman says Russian rocket went about 2km into polish territory. Poland not happy at all. NATO F16 fighter jets were preparing.
• Russia attacked Kyiv with hypersonic missiles on Monday
• ECB Panetta:
• Inflation declining slows room for possible cut in rates. There is growing consensus in ECB for possible rate cut - dovish comments
• US HOUSE PASSES $1.2T government funding package, sends to senate. House speaker Mike Johnson is getting some backlash for passing this bill though. Texas rep said how can there be a Ukraine bill but not secured the border yet.
• UBS Calling for pullback in SPX from current levels
• US and Japan are planning biggest upgrade to their security pact in 60 years.
• Overnight, Kanda (Japan Currency chief) was talking about yen weakness and extreme volatility:
• Said that generally speaking weak yen has less benefit than before. Wont rule out any measures if excessive moves are seen. Said they don’t watch particular FX levels, but looks at direction of the moves.
• This verbal intervention inference helps to limit JPY sell off further in near term.
• Goldman says that they see commodities gaining as Central banks cut.
• China Premier Li welcomes companies from all countries to invest and deepen foothold in China.
• Bloomberg article that Powell is ready to support job market even if inflation lingers, but this article just referred to comments Powell made at the press conference last week so is not a big tailwind.
• China Industry minister accelerates plans for new industrialisation and optimising and upgrading supply chains.

For more of my analysis daily, including stock specific predictions based on detailed data from the options market, please join Tradingedge and Swingtrading.
ANALYSIS:

• A look at the major news I guess today which is dragging semiconductors lower, and that is the AMD INTEL news. This is that China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead.
• I think any dip we see off of this is going to be a welcome buying opportunity, and I will be keeping my eye out for entry on AMD. This guideline extends only to Government PCs. Not all PCs in China. I think there is fear mongering in the market and social media on this, but on the facts of it, it’s not that big a deal. The guidelines also went after MSFT, but traders are not so worried about them. Positioning still shows bullishness growing on AMD, but anticipation of probably a consolidation first.
• Regarding oil gold and FX markets, we see Dollar pare some of its recent gains this morning. We can still se more FX volatility, but for now the EURUSD has held the 1.08 support.
• Oil moves higher on dollar weakness this morning and on geopolitical risks. We have see skew move slightly lower as traders take profits at 83 WTI at end of last week after dollar moved higher, but overall positioning still bullish.
• Similar picture with gold, some profit taking at end of last week, but we see traders firmly bullish on Gold still.
• If we look at Europe for a second, we see that FTSE is pulling back this morning, as is GER40. This is merely because they are stuck below key gamma levels. FTSE stuck below the key gamma level at 7900, but skew still moves higher, adn we see positive call delta growing on 8000, which points to traders still looking increasingly bullish.
• To US, we see traders continue to sell vol. we might not see big move higher today as skew is lower, but we probably won’t see big move lower either.

DATA LEDE:

• Dutch GDP final revision, comes better than expected and previously reported at 0.4% QOQ, vs forecasts and previous reading of 0.3%
• US New Home Sales (Feb)
• Dallas Fed Mfg Index (Mar)

MARKETS:

• SPX slightly lower today, Trading at 5215, after close on Friday at 5232. Was flat during asian session, now headed lower during European session. Will try to find some support at 5200.
• Nasdaq: - down a bit more than SPX as semis are under pressure today. Was at 18,340 on weekend, now at 18,227
• Dow: Trading most flat of the 3 indexes, at 39,400.
• Ger40: Down v slightly, at 18,200.
• FTSE 100 - coming of best week since September. Trades down today, by 0.35%, back below the 7,900 level.
• Nikkei lower as Yen rebounds a little on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention. Down 1.1% at 40,316.
• HKG market slightly lower at 16,430. Still trading out fo the recently formed uptrend.
• GOLD - slightly higher again on weaker dollar, back at 2171.
• Oil shifts higher, above the 81 mark as USD dips a bit in the morning, and on geopolitical unrest in Ukraine and Russia and Rising attacks on energy facilities in Russia.

FX:

• Asian FX rebounds. Chinese Yuan has been following Yen. We saw Yen rebound this morning on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention and that they ere closely monitoring. (Note this sent Nikkei lower)
• AUD slightly higher following stronger CNY and on weaker USD.
• EURUSD holds above 1.08 support as USD trims gains on profit taking.
• AUDUSD trading at 0.654
• EURUSD holds 1.08 support, trading t 1.0823 GBPUSD follows EURUSD, back above the 1.26 level.
• USDJPY at 151.35, tested 151 then moved higher.

INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH:

• Goldman tells investors to look beyond the MAg7 in the US to the GRANOLAS in Europe.
• MUFG says that BOJ officials and other Japanese officials will use verbal intervention to help to dampen further USDJPY upside in near term.
• Standard Chartered says that the fact that JPY remained weak after first rate hike should encourage BOJ to hike further. I’m not 100% sure on this, I do think that BOJ will limit hikes but can use intervention against JPY weakness.
• BBH says that USD can go higher in near term as they do not see fed delivering 75 bps of cuts. Said economic growth is encouraging and financial conditions are already very loose so don’t see fed cuts.
• This comes after BOSTIC SAID HE NOW PROJECtS JUSt 1 RATE CUT LATER IN YEAR.
• Envestnet shares similar sentiment saying that market is overexcited on 3 rate cuts and first in June. They didn’t interpret Powells comments to imply rate cut in June.

MAG7 news:

• AAPL - vision pro set for 2024 launch in mainland China, says Tim Cook. Apple will ramp up R&D investment in China.
• AAPL - next update to iPhone operating system, ios18 is reportedly considered to be biggest update to iOS since original iPhone.
• AAPL, GOOGL. And META probed by EU under new Digital Law - EU say Apple failed to make some apps uninstallible.
• MSFT - China guidelines aimed at AMD and INTC also seeks to sideline Microsoft’sWindows OS and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options
• TSLA, META - Tesla now advertising on Meta’s FB for the v first time.
• TSLA - downgraded at Mizuho to neutral, price target 195. Down in premarket.

COMPANY SPECIFIC NEWS:

• UAL shares are down as US FAA increases overweight on the company. Said to mull limits on new routes for United after safety incidents.
• INTC and AMD down on this news.
• AMD - INTC - China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead. Intel and AMD's significant sales in China at risk; Intel saw 27% of its sales in China last year.
• Note this is just to do with GOVERNMENT PCs. It’s not that big a deal.
• Semis are all widely lower on this news.
• Crypto stocks higher, especially coin as BTC price recovers.
• CMP down as US forest service halts contract with CMP for 2024 fire season due to safety concerns
• TPX - price target raised to 75 from 50 by loop Capital.
• NiO - Mizuho downgrades to neutral, price target 5.50
• Mizuho widely downgraded the whole EV industry, including Tesla, Nio and RIVN
• FL - upgraded at Evercore ISI to overweight. Up on this news.
• IR - will buy ILC Dover for $2.33B upfront plus earnout.
• JCI - apparently seeing buyer interest for their HVAC assets
• SMCI - JPM initiates at overweight, price target 1150. SMCI outperform by Northaldn Capital too who have price target 1300.
• DIS - Barclays upgrades to overweight, price target 135
• RRX - Keybanc maintains at overweight, price target raised to 210
• Novo Nordisk strikes deal worth up to $1.1B to expand cardio business.
• ADM - paid bonuses to senior executives, even as they are in midst of government investigation.
• BA - largest union is seeking a seat on the Boeing board.
• Sony lower as Japanese market closes lower.
• Xiaomi showrooms start deploying the vehicle.
• MMM - Wells Fargo stick to hold rating.
• Nissan said they will look to address extreme market volatility with 30 new models and EV cost cuts.
• European home improvement group, Kingfisher, dropped 3% after issuing third warning on profit in 6 months.
• Chinese food delivery company, Meituan jumped 10% to highest level since November on news that they are continuing o increase investment in China’s consumer market and tech research.

OTHER NEWS:

• Bostic predicts just 1 rate cut, and now sees it later in the year than before.
• Cost to protect against a drawdown at record lows - very little headwinds and risks seen by investors in this market.
• As mentioned in separate post, forward inflation swaps are pricing in higher April print on inflation, then back lower again.
• HSBC raises year end SPX target to 5400 from 5000. Bears capitulating.
• Global Geopolitical unrest:
• Russian media outlets report shooting in concert hall in Moscow, people being evacuated
• 2nd blast reported there too in concert hall.
• 40 dead.
• US say Ukraine not got anything to do with it. As does Ukrainian presidential adviser
• Russia was forced to cancel all weekend mass gatherings
• Putin says attackers tried to escape towards Ukraine, but were caught and detained. Not Russian citizens Putin continues to link them to Ukraine. Said a passage was prepared for them from Ukraine side.
• Ukraine officials report Russian air attack on Kyiv.
• Polish army spokesman says Russian rocket went about 2km into polish territory. Poland not happy at all. NATO F16 fighter jets were preparing.
• Russia attacked Kyiv with hypersonic missiles on Monday
• ECB Panetta:
• Inflation declining slows room for possible cut in rates. There is growing consensus in ECB for possible rate cut - dovish comments
• US HOUSE PASSES $1.2T government funding package, sends to senate. House speaker Mike Johnson is getting some backlash for passing this bill though. Texas rep said how can there be a Ukraine bill but not secured the border yet.
• Blackrock is only seeing a little bit of demand for ehterum from clients, compared to bitcoin.
• UBS Calling for pullback in SPX from current levels
• US and Japan are planning biggest upgrade to their security pact in 60 years.
• Overnight, Kanda (Japan Currency chief) was talking about yen weakness and extreme volatility:
• Said that generally speaking weak yen has less benefit than before. Wont rule out any measures if excessive moves are seen. Said they don’t watch particular FX levels, but looks at direction of the moves.
• This verbal intervention inference helps to limit JPY sell off further in near term.
• Goldman says that they see commodities gaining as Central banks cut.
• China Premier Li welcomes companies from all countries to invest and deepen foothold in China.
• Binance will end support for USDC stable coin on Tron blockchain network.
• Bloomberg article that Powell is ready to support job market even if inflation lingers, but this article just referred to comments Powell made at the press conference last week so is not a big tailwind.
• China Industry minister accelerates plans for new industrialisation and optimising and upgrading supply chains.

For more of my analysis daily, including stock specific predictions based on detailed data from the options market, please join Tradingedge.
​

For more of my analysis daily, including stock specific predictions based on detailed data from the options market, please join Tradingedge.
ANALYSIS:

• A look at the major news I guess today which is dragging semiconductors lower, and that is the AMD INTEL news. This is that China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead.
• I think any dip we see off of this is going to be a welcome buying opportunity, and I will be keeping my eye out for entry on AMD. This guideline extends only to Government PCs. Not all PCs in China. I think there is fear mongering in the market and social media on this, but on the facts of it, it’s not that big a deal. The guidelines also went after MSFT, but traders are not so worried about them. Positioning still shows bullishness growing on AMD, but anticipation of probably a consolidation first.
• Regarding oil gold and FX markets, we see Dollar pare some of its recent gains this morning. We can still se more FX volatility, but for now the EURUSD has held the 1.08 support.
• Oil moves higher on dollar weakness this morning and on geopolitical risks. We have see skew move slightly lower as traders take profits at 83 WTI at end of last week after dollar moved higher, but overall positioning still bullish.
• Similar picture with gold, some profit taking at end of last week, but we see traders firmly bullish on Gold still.
• If we look at Europe for a second, we see that FTSE is pulling back this morning, as is GER40. This is merely because they are stuck below key gamma levels. FTSE stuck below the key gamma level at 7900, but skew still moves higher, adn we see positive call delta growing on 8000, which points to traders still looking increasingly bullish.
• To US, we see traders continue to sell vol. we might not see big move higher today as skew is lower, but we probably won’t see big move lower either.

DATA LEDE:

• Dutch GDP final revision, comes better than expected and previously reported at 0.4% QOQ, vs forecasts and previous reading of 0.3%
• US New Home Sales (Feb)
• Dallas Fed Mfg Index (Mar)

MARKETS:

• SPX slightly lower today, Trading at 5215, after close on Friday at 5232. Was flat during asian session, now headed lower during European session. Will try to find some support at 5200.
• Nasdaq: - down a bit more than SPX as semis are under pressure today. Was at 18,340 on weekend, now at 18,227
• Dow: Trading most flat of the 3 indexes, at 39,400.
• Ger40: Down v slightly, at 18,200.
• FTSE 100 - coming of best week since September. Trades down today, by 0.35%, back below the 7,900 level.
• Nikkei lower as Yen rebounds a little on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention. Down 1.1% at 40,316.
• HKG market slightly lower at 16,430. Still trading out fo the recently formed uptrend.
• GOLD - slightly higher again on weaker dollar, back at 2171.
• Oil shifts higher, above the 81 mark as USD dips a bit in the morning, and on geopolitical unrest in Ukraine and Russia and Rising attacks on energy facilities in Russia.

FX:

• Asian FX rebounds. Chinese Yuan has been following Yen. We saw Yen rebound this morning on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention and that they ere closely monitoring. (Note this sent Nikkei lower)
• AUD slightly higher following stronger CNY and on weaker USD.
• EURUSD holds above 1.08 support as USD trims gains on profit taking.
• AUDUSD trading at 0.654
• EURUSD holds 1.08 support, trading t 1.0823 GBPUSD follows EURUSD, back above the 1.26 level.
• USDJPY at 151.35, tested 151 then moved higher.

INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH:

• Goldman tells investors to look beyond the MAg7 in the US to the GRANOLAS in Europe.
• MUFG says that BOJ officials and other Japanese officials will use verbal intervention to help to dampen further USDJPY upside in near term.
• Standard Chartered says that the fact that JPY remained weak after first rate hike should encourage BOJ to hike further. I’m not 100% sure on this, I do think that BOJ will limit hikes but can use intervention against JPY weakness.
• BBH says that USD can go higher in near term as they do not see fed delivering 75 bps of cuts. Said economic growth is encouraging and financial conditions are already very loose so don’t see fed cuts.
• This comes after BOSTIC SAID HE NOW PROJECtS JUSt 1 RATE CUT LATER IN YEAR.
• Envestnet shares similar sentiment saying that market is overexcited on 3 rate cuts and first in June. They didn’t interpret Powells comments to imply rate cut in June.

MAG7 news:

• AAPL - vision pro set for 2024 launch in mainland China, says Tim Cook. Apple will ramp up R&D investment in China.
• AAPL - next update to iPhone operating system, ios18 is reportedly considered to be biggest update to iOS since original iPhone.
• AAPL, GOOGL. And META probed by EU under new Digital Law - EU say Apple failed to make some apps uninstallible.
• MSFT - China guidelines aimed at AMD and INTC also seeks to sideline Microsoft’sWindows OS and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options
• TSLA, META - Tesla now advertising on Meta’s FB for the v first time.
• TSLA - downgraded at Mizuho to neutral, price target 195. Down in premarket.

COMPANY SPECIFIC NEWS:

• UAL shares are down as US FAA increases overweight on the company. Said to mull limits on new routes for United after safety incidents.
• INTC and AMD down on this news.
• AMD - INTC - China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead. Intel and AMD's significant sales in China at risk; Intel saw 27% of its sales in China last year.
• Note this is just to do with GOVERNMENT PCs. It’s not that big a deal.
• Semis are all widely lower on this news.
• Crypto stocks higher, especially coin as BTC price recovers.
• CMP down as US forest service halts contract with CMP for 2024 fire season due to safety concerns
• TPX - price target raised to 75 from 50 by loop Capital.
• NiO - Mizuho downgrades to neutral, price target 5.50
• Mizuho widely downgraded the whole EV industry, including Tesla, Nio and RIVN
• FL - upgraded at Evercore ISI to overweight. Up on this news.
• IR - will buy ILC Dover for $2.33B upfront plus earnout.
• JCI - apparently seeing buyer interest for their HVAC assets
• SMCI - JPM initiates at overweight, price target 1150. SMCI outperform by Northaldn Capital too who have price target 1300.
• DIS - Barclays upgrades to overweight, price target 135
• RRX - Keybanc maintains at overweight, price target raised to 210
• Novo Nordisk strikes deal worth up to $1.1B to expand cardio business.
• ADM - paid bonuses to senior executives, even as they are in midst of government investigation.
• BA - largest union is seeking a seat on the Boeing board.
• Sony lower as Japanese market closes lower.
• Xiaomi showrooms start deploying the vehicle.
• MMM - Wells Fargo stick to hold rating.
• Nissan said they will look to address extreme market volatility with 30 new models and EV cost cuts.
• European home improvement group, Kingfisher, dropped 3% after issuing third warning on profit in 6 months.
• Chinese food delivery company, Meituan jumped 10% to highest level since November on news that they are continuing o increase investment in China’s consumer market and tech research.

OTHER NEWS:

• Bostic predicts just 1 rate cut, and now sees it later in the year than before.
• Cost to protect against a drawdown at record lows - very little headwinds and risks seen by investors in this market.
• As mentioned in separate post, forward inflation swaps are pricing in higher April print on inflation, then back lower again.
• HSBC raises year end SPX target to 5400 from 5000. Bears capitulating.
• Global Geopolitical unrest:
• Russian media outlets report shooting in concert hall in Moscow, people being evacuated
• 2nd blast reported there too in concert hall.
• 40 dead.
• US say Ukraine not got anything to do with it. As does Ukrainian presidential adviser
• Russia was forced to cancel all weekend mass gatherings
• Putin says attackers tried to escape towards Ukraine, but were caught and detained. Not Russian citizens Putin continues to link them to Ukraine. Said a passage was prepared for them from Ukraine side.
• Ukraine officials report Russian air attack on Kyiv.
• Polish army spokesman says Russian rocket went about 2km into polish territory. Poland not happy at all. NATO F16 fighter jets were preparing.
• Russia attacked Kyiv with hypersonic missiles on Monday
• ECB Panetta:
• Inflation declining slows room for possible cut in rates. There is growing consensus in ECB for possible rate cut - dovish comments
• US HOUSE PASSES $1.2T government funding package, sends to senate. House speaker Mike Johnson is getting some backlash for passing this bill though. Texas rep said how can there be a Ukraine bill but not secured the border yet.
• Blackrock is only seeing a little bit of demand for ehterum from clients, compared to bitcoin.
• UBS Calling for pullback in SPX from current levels
• US and Japan are planning biggest upgrade to their security pact in 60 years.
• Overnight, Kanda (Japan Currency chief) was talking about yen weakness and extreme volatility:
• Said that generally speaking weak yen has less benefit than before. Wont rule out any measures if excessive moves are seen. Said they don’t watch particular FX levels, but looks at direction of the moves.
• This verbal intervention inference helps to limit JPY sell off further in near term.
• Goldman says that they see commodities gaining as Central banks cut.
• China Premier Li welcomes companies from all countries to invest and deepen foothold in China.
• Binance will end support for USDC stable coin on Tron blockchain network.
• Bloomberg article that Powell is ready to support job market even if inflation lingers, but this article just referred to comments Powell made at the press conference last week so is not a big tailwind.
• China Industry minister accelerates plans for new industrialisation and optimising and upgrading supply chains.

For more of my analysis daily, including stock specific predictions based on detailed data from the options market, please join Tradingedge.
​

For more of my analysis daily, including stock specific predictions based on detailed data from the options market, please join Tradingedge.
ANALYSIS:

• A look at the major news I guess today which is dragging semiconductors lower, and that is the AMD INTEL news. This is that China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead.
• I think any dip we see off of this is going to be a welcome buying opportunity, and I will be keeping my eye out for entry on AMD. This guideline extends only to Government PCs. Not all PCs in China. I think there is fear mongering in the market and social media on this, but on the facts of it, it’s not that big a deal. The guidelines also went after MSFT, but traders are not so worried about them. Positioning still shows bullishness growing on AMD, but anticipation of probably a consolidation first.
• Regarding oil gold and FX markets, we see Dollar pare some of its recent gains this morning. We can still se more FX volatility, but for now the EURUSD has held the 1.08 support.
• Oil moves higher on dollar weakness this morning and on geopolitical risks. We have see skew move slightly lower as traders take profits at 83 WTI at end of last week after dollar moved higher, but overall positioning still bullish.
• Similar picture with gold, some profit taking at end of last week, but we see traders firmly bullish on Gold still.
• If we look at Europe for a second, we see that FTSE is pulling back this morning, as is GER40. This is merely because they are stuck below key gamma levels. FTSE stuck below the key gamma level at 7900, but skew still moves higher, adn we see positive call delta growing on 8000, which points to traders still looking increasingly bullish.
• To US, we see traders continue to sell vol. we might not see big move higher today as skew is lower, but we probably won’t see big move lower either.

DATA LEDE:

• Dutch GDP final revision, comes better than expected and previously reported at 0.4% QOQ, vs forecasts and previous reading of 0.3%
• US New Home Sales (Feb)
• Dallas Fed Mfg Index (Mar)

MARKETS:

• SPX slightly lower today, Trading at 5215, after close on Friday at 5232. Was flat during asian session, now headed lower during European session. Will try to find some support at 5200.
• Nasdaq: - down a bit more than SPX as semis are under pressure today. Was at 18,340 on weekend, now at 18,227
• Dow: Trading most flat of the 3 indexes, at 39,400.
• Ger40: Down v slightly, at 18,200.
• FTSE 100 - coming of best week since September. Trades down today, by 0.35%, back below the 7,900 level.
• Nikkei lower as Yen rebounds a little on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention. Down 1.1% at 40,316.
• HKG market slightly lower at 16,430. Still trading out fo the recently formed uptrend.
• GOLD - slightly higher again on weaker dollar, back at 2171.
• Oil shifts higher, above the 81 mark as USD dips a bit in the morning, and on geopolitical unrest in Ukraine and Russia and Rising attacks on energy facilities in Russia.

FX:

• Asian FX rebounds. Chinese Yuan has been following Yen. We saw Yen rebound this morning on Kanda’s comments of possible FX intervention and that they ere closely monitoring. (Note this sent Nikkei lower)
• AUD slightly higher following stronger CNY and on weaker USD.
• EURUSD holds above 1.08 support as USD trims gains on profit taking.
• AUDUSD trading at 0.654
• EURUSD holds 1.08 support, trading t 1.0823 GBPUSD follows EURUSD, back above the 1.26 level.
• USDJPY at 151.35, tested 151 then moved higher.

INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH:

• Goldman tells investors to look beyond the MAg7 in the US to the GRANOLAS in Europe.
• MUFG says that BOJ officials and other Japanese officials will use verbal intervention to help to dampen further USDJPY upside in near term.
• Standard Chartered says that the fact that JPY remained weak after first rate hike should encourage BOJ to hike further. I’m not 100% sure on this, I do think that BOJ will limit hikes but can use intervention against JPY weakness.
• BBH says that USD can go higher in near term as they do not see fed delivering 75 bps of cuts. Said economic growth is encouraging and financial conditions are already very loose so don’t see fed cuts.
• This comes after BOSTIC SAID HE NOW PROJECtS JUSt 1 RATE CUT LATER IN YEAR.
• Envestnet shares similar sentiment saying that market is overexcited on 3 rate cuts and first in June. They didn’t interpret Powells comments to imply rate cut in June.

MAG7 news:

• AAPL - vision pro set for 2024 launch in mainland China, says Tim Cook. Apple will ramp up R&D investment in China.
• AAPL - next update to iPhone operating system, ios18 is reportedly considered to be biggest update to iOS since original iPhone.
• AAPL, GOOGL. And META probed by EU under new Digital Law - EU say Apple failed to make some apps uninstallible.
• MSFT - China guidelines aimed at AMD and INTC also seeks to sideline Microsoft’sWindows OS and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options
• TSLA, META - Tesla now advertising on Meta’s FB for the v first time.
• TSLA - downgraded at Mizuho to neutral, price target 195. Down in premarket.

COMPANY SPECIFIC NEWS:

• UAL shares are down as US FAA increases overweight on the company. Said to mull limits on new routes for United after safety incidents.
• INTC and AMD down on this news.
• AMD - INTC - China issues guidelines to eliminate Intel and AMD chips from government PCs and Servers, pushing domestic alternatives instead. Intel and AMD's significant sales in China at risk; Intel saw 27% of its sales in China last year.
• Note this is just to do with GOVERNMENT PCs. It’s not that big a deal.
• Semis are all widely lower on this news.
• Crypto stocks higher, especially coin as BTC price recovers.
• CMP down as US forest service halts contract with CMP for 2024 fire season due to safety concerns
• TPX - price target raised to 75 from 50 by loop Capital.
• NiO - Mizuho downgrades to neutral, price target 5.50
• Mizuho widely downgraded the whole EV industry, including Tesla, Nio and RIVN
• FL - upgraded at Evercore ISI to overweight. Up on this news.
• IR - will buy ILC Dover for $2.33B upfront plus earnout.
• JCI - apparently seeing buyer interest for their HVAC assets
• SMCI - JPM initiates at overweight, price target 1150. SMCI outperform by Northaldn Capital too who have price target 1300.
• DIS - Barclays upgrades to overweight, price target 135
• RRX - Keybanc maintains at overweight, price target raised to 210
• Novo Nordisk strikes deal worth up to $1.1B to expand cardio business.
• ADM - paid bonuses to senior executives, even as they are in midst of government investigation.
• BA - largest union is seeking a seat on the Boeing board.
• Sony lower as Japanese market closes lower.
• Xiaomi showrooms start deploying the vehicle.
• MMM - Wells Fargo stick to hold rating.
• Nissan said they will look to address extreme market volatility with 30 new models and EV cost cuts.
• European home improvement group, Kingfisher, dropped 3% after issuing third warning on profit in 6 months.
• Chinese food delivery company, Meituan jumped 10% to highest level since November on news that they are continuing o increase investment in China’s consumer market and tech research.

OTHER NEWS:

• Bostic predicts just 1 rate cut, and now sees it later in the year than before.
• Cost to protect against a drawdown at record lows - very little headwinds and risks seen by investors in this market.
• As mentioned in separate post, forward inflation swaps are pricing in higher April print on inflation, then back lower again.
• HSBC raises year end SPX target to 5400 from 5000. Bears capitulating.
• Global Geopolitical unrest:
• Russian media outlets report shooting in concert hall in Moscow, people being evacuated
• 2nd blast reported there too in concert hall.
• 40 dead.
• US say Ukraine not got anything to do with it. As does Ukrainian presidential adviser
• Russia was forced to cancel all weekend mass gatherings
• Putin says attackers tried to escape towards Ukraine, but were caught and detained. Not Russian citizens Putin continues to link them to Ukraine. Said a passage was prepared for them from Ukraine side.
• Ukraine officials report Russian air attack on Kyiv.
• Polish army spokesman says Russian rocket went about 2km into polish territory. Poland not happy at all. NATO F16 fighter jets were preparing.
• Russia attacked Kyiv with hypersonic missiles on Monday
• ECB Panetta:
• Inflation declining slows room for possible cut in rates. There is growing consensus in ECB for possible rate cut - dovish comments
• US HOUSE PASSES $1.2T government funding package, sends to senate. House speaker Mike Johnson is getting some backlash for passing this bill though. Texas rep said how can there be a Ukraine bill but not secured the border yet.
• Blackrock is only seeing a little bit of demand for ehterum from clients, compared to bitcoin.
• UBS Calling for pullback in SPX from current levels
• US and Japan are planning biggest upgrade to their security pact in 60 years.
• Overnight, Kanda (Japan Currency chief) was talking about yen weakness and extreme volatility:
• Said that generally speaking weak yen has less benefit than before. Wont rule out any measures if excessive moves are seen. Said they don’t watch particular FX levels, but looks at direction of the moves.
• This verbal intervention inference helps to limit JPY sell off further in near term.
• Goldman says that they see commodities gaining as Central banks cut.
• China Premier Li welcomes companies from all countries to invest and deepen foothold in China.
• Binance will end support for USDC stable coin on Tron blockchain network.
• Bloomberg article that Powell is ready to support job market even if inflation lingers, but this article just referred to comments Powell made at the press conference last week so is not a big tailwind.
• China Industry minister accelerates plans for new industrialisation and optimising and upgrading supply chains.

For more of my analysis daily, including stock specific predictions based on detailed data from the options market, please join Tradingedge.
​