August 2025 DDD

[ducati916]

Monday: After reporting a double beat, Apple $AAPL had its 4th consecutive negative earnings reaction. In the report, we learned that the installed base of active devices reached all-time highs across all categories and geographies. The world's largest retailer, Amazon $AMZN, reported a blockbuster earnings report, but fell more than 8% for its 5th consecutive negative earnings reaction. Their recent Amazon Prime Day was the best ever in terms of sales and sign-ups. Tuesday: The diagnostics & research company, IDEXX Laboratories $IDXX, posted a massive double beat and soared 27.5% for its best earnings reaction ever. One of the worst semiconductor stocks in the market, ON Semiconductor $ON reported mixed results and was punished with its worst earnings reaction in 7 quarters. Their revenue dropped an astounding 15.4% year-over-year. Wednesday: One of the leaders in AI software, Palantir $PLTR posted one of the best earnings reports of this season. The stock skyrocketed to new all-time highs as a result. The biopharma giant, Vertex Pharmaceuticals $VRTX, beat the market's headline expectations, but cratered over 20% for its 2nd-worst earnings reaction ever. This move was sparked by the Chief Science Officer, Mark Bunnage, announcing that he's leaving the company, and significantly worse forward guidance for one of its largest products. Thursday: The computer hardware giant, Arista Networks $ANET crushed the market's expectations and made a textbook gap-n-go to new all-time highs as a result. Revenue and net income surged 30.4% and 37.7%, respectively. The ride-hailing giant, Uber Technologies $UBER, reported a double beat, but the market didn't like it for the 4th consecutive quarter. They also announced a new $20B share repurchase program, but it wasn't enough to spark a rally. Friday: Uber's largest competitor, DoorDash $DASH posted better-than-expected headline results and decisively reclaimed its prior cycle peak. The stock has been rewarded for 4 of its last 5 earnings reports. The world leader in GLP-1 drugs, Eli Lilly $LLY reported disappointing results and was severely punished for it. The stock made a textbook bearish gap-n-go and had its worst earnings reaction ever.

What's happening next week

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Next week, we have another monster lineup of names stepping up to the mic. The reports we'll be monitoring closest are Sea Ltd. $SE, John Deere $DE, and Cisco Systems $CSCO. Beyond those, we’ll hear from one of the data center leaders, CoreWeave $CRWV, the world's largest publicly traded stablecoin issuer, Circle $CRCL, the hot new Swiss shoe manufacturer On Holding $ONON, and many more. It's set to be another eventful week, so there will be plenty to cover in The Daily Beat. Now, let’s dig into the setups we’ll be closely monitoring next week.

Here's the setup in SE ahead of Tuesday's earnings report

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Sea Ltd. reports Tuesday before the open, with consensus calling for $4.98B in revenue and $0.86 EPS. Price has been climbing up the right-hand side of a massive multi-year base since bottoming in early 2024. Now, it's pressing up against the 38.2% retracement - a key level of interest that has been serving as resistance recently. The bulls want to see a breakout to new multi-year highs to complete this base and open the door toward the 61.8% retracement. Until then, this is still a test of overhead supply.

Here are SE's earnings trends

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The past 5 quarters have delivered exceptional revenue growth, with the last 5 all topping +22% year-over-year. EPS growth has also been explosive in recent quarters, with triple- and quadruple-digit gains late last year and this year. Historically, the stock has been a mixed bag when it comes to pre- and post-earnings drift. The price has surged higher in reaction to 6 consecutive earnings reports, and we see no reason for it not to extend that streak this quarter. Either way, we're confident the SE earnings reaction will be dramatic as always.

Here's the setup in DE ahead of Thursday's earnings report

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John Deere reports Thursday before the open, with estimates at $10.35B revenue and $4.57 EPS. The stock decisively resolved a multi-year accumulation pattern earlier this year. Since then, it has carved out a textbook bullish continuation pattern. This is exactly the kind of setup that can lead to a huge reaction leg higher if earnings cooperate.

Here are DE's earnings trends

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The story here is less about growth and more about resilience. Revenue growth has been negative in 5 of the last 6 quarters, with EPS showing similar weakness - double-digit declines have been common recently. Despite this, the stock has still delivered multiple positive earnings reactions, including an 8.05% surge last November and a 3.78% pop after its previous report. Pre-earnings drift has been mostly slightly positive, suggesting traders often bid up shares into reports. But post-earnings drift is more mixed... The bottom line is that despite some contraction in the fundamentals, the market has demonstrated a willingness to reward DE for surpassing lowered expectations. Thursday’s earnings reaction is crucial for DE bulls if they want to keep this new uptrend alive.

Here's the setup in CSCO ahead of Wednesday's earnings report

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Cisco reports Wednesday after the close, with consensus calling for $14.62B in revenue and $0.98 EPS. Price has been soaring higher and looks poised to retest the .com bubble peak. Remember, CSCO was the darling of that bubble, rallying 7,775% in 6 years. There's little doubt in our minds that the market will acknowledge the 82 level, which marked the high in March 2000.

Here are CSCO's earnings trends

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Everything changed for this stock after its Q1 2025 earnings report, which snapped 4 consecutive quarters of negative revenue and earnings growth. This also sparked a new streak of positive earnings reactions. With the price skyrocketing to new multi-decade highs ahead of this report, it's clear that the market is anticipating another good quarter. If the company fails to deliver, we expect a dramatic negative reaction. On the flipside, if they give the market what it's looking for, we expect CSCO to test 82 for the first time since 2000.

Just a word on inflation.

Common garden variety inflation, you know, in the 10% to 20% variety can be driven by a number of factors, which I'm not overly interested in at the moment.

Hyperinflation however has only one cause. That cause is the collapse of the currency. That is the risk that the US is currently running with the debt levels where they are.

To not default outright on the debt, the US must inflate and expand the money supply to the point where currency collapse becomes a real possibility.

After watching the MSTR and Saylor video, just how much confidence do you have in BTC? With a number of imitators, all using the fly-wheel of selling debt to buy BTC, yes BTC will rise in the short term as their buying propels it higher. Already BTC is losing its explosive volatility to the upside. It will however retain its explosive volatility to the downside.


The significant increase in churn of short term Bills as Treasury debt rolls over every 4wks should be sending a massive warning. Bessent et al are desperately looking for new buyers, Tether and the like, for this increased churn. This issue is massively under-reported. Ignored. How soon until the Fed HAS to buy all the issue?

Here is where your garden variety inflation can become an issue.

Inflation rises to 5%. Not an outrageous number.
The Fed lowers the FFR to 3%

You now have a negative real return on your Bills, assuming the short end of the market actually responds to that cut in the FFR.

1. Who buys the Bills at negative rates?
2. If rates do not fall following a cut in the FFR, which to date they have not, what does that signal?

jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

Earnings season didn’t ease up on Friday - it came out swinging. We got 19 fresh S&P 500 reactions spanning everything from high-flying growth names to steady defensive plays, plus a few cyclical heavyweights thrown in for good measure. The tape saw monster upside moves from stocks delivering their best quarters in years… and brutal collapses from others that completely missed the market’s expectations, even when the headline numbers looked good. From Healthcare to Staples, Software to Semis, this batch was a reminder that earnings season isn’t just about beating headline expectations - it’s about beating the market's expectations. Let's break it all down!

Here are the latest earnings stats from the S&P 500

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GILD had its best earnings reaction in 12 quarters

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Gilead Sciences rallied 8.3% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenue rose 2% year-over-year, driven by their HIV, oncology, and liver disease products. The FDA approved Yeztugo (lenacapavir) as the first twice-yearly HIV prevention, and they have launched it in the United States. This has the potential to be one of the most successful pharma products ever. In addition to the solid quarter, the management team raised its full-year revenue and EPS guidance.

This was a sweet earnings reaction from one of the best technical setups in the Healthcare sector. We love how the fundamentals and technicals are aligned here. In addition, the stock is on the cusp of resolving a multi-decade accumulation pattern and resuming its long-term uptrend. Remember, this was one of the darlings of the post-GFC biotech bubble, rallying from 16 to 123 in a few years and becoming one of the major players in the industry. This stock has the juice! It's clear that the market has high expectations for Yeztugo, so we'll be closely monitoring its performance in the coming quarters. If and when GILD closes above 123, the path of least resistance will decisively shift higher for the foreseeable future.

TTD had its worst earnings reaction ever

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Trade Desk fell 38.6% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

The long-time CFO, Laura Schenkein, unexpectedly stepped down. Historically, this has been a great leading indicator for companies facing significant challenges. No GAAP net income outlook provided due to variability in stock-based compensation (ahem, ahem, the management team is paying itself much more than it deserves). Competition from large peers like Amazon is sparking major concerns about their long-term business moat.

This earnings reaction was just about as bad as it gets for an S&P 500 component, especially for a stock that beat the headline expectations. In addition to the nasty reaction, seeing the CFO unexpectedly step down adds to our conviction that something is terribly wrong with this company. All of this together leads us to believe there is a new markdown phase on the horizon. If and when TTD closes below 40, the path of least resistance will decisively shift from sideways to lower for the foreseeable future.

When it comes to sentiment, what better gauge than a fresh magazine cover? Did you catch the latest Barron’s this morning? They’re once again dropping bearish headlines on crypto. The cover screams “The New Risks in Crypto,” warning about everything from the Trump administration’s policies to quantum computing threats.

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It’s almost funny how journalists keep recycling the same scary stories. Negative headlines grab attention, sure. But the market isn’t fazed. If there’s one asset that’s survived every crisis, ban, crackdown, hack, and regulations, it’s Bitcoin. And yet here we are this morning. BTC is pushing up against new all-time highs.

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Take a moment to let that sink in. Those headlines? Just background noise. Look at Solana, too — quietly reclaiming its VWAP from all-time highs.

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That’s not what you’d expect if the market faced a serious threat. The scary covers will keep coming — they always do. But if you’ve been around long enough, you know these covers are just a sentiment indicator. In the end, the market decides the story — not the magazine. Price beats narrative. Every time.

Trump is rushing toward a new style of economy, with deals that some worry don't look much like the red-blooded capitalism that defines America. Why it matters: In the Trump 2.0 era, the White House routinely makes extraordinary — and in at least one case, unprecedented — interventions in the domestic and global economy, as well as in corporate America. If materialized, the commitments might supercharge economic investment. Longer-term consequences of such a pivot, however, are harder to predict. Driving the news: Semiconductor giants Nvidia and AMD will be able to sell key chips in China, but only after the companies agreed to hand 15% of some of those sales over to the U.S. government. The administration said it would ban exports of Nvidia H20 chip earlier this year, citing national security concerns. The Financial Times, which first reported news of the deal, said the firms would be the first ever to commit a chunk of revenue in exchange for export permissions. What they're saying: "What we are seeing is in effect the monetization of U.S. trade policy in which U.S. companies must pay the U.S. government for permission to export. If that's the case, we've entered into a new and dangerous world," former trade negotiator Stephen Olson told Bloomberg. The big picture: It's the latest deal that demonstrates a firm Trump-shaped imprint on corporate America and the world economy. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan will be at the White House today, a bid to smooth over tensions with Trump, who said last week the executive "must resign, immediately." The more than $1 trillion investment collectively committed by Europe, Japan and others came as Trump threatened to escalate global trade wars. In the case of Japan, the funds will be distributed "at President Trump's direction," according to a White House fact sheet. Last week, Trump said Apple would be exempt from future chip tariffs because of the company's plans to invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. (For what it's worth, the upbeat meeting with CEO Tim Cook was cheered by Wall Street — the stock had its best week in five years.) The administration retains a "golden share" in the combined Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel entity, giving the government a say in key corporate decisions. The intrigue: Veteran Wall Street investor Peter Boockvar opened his market memo to clients this morning saying his "political head [was] spinning again" after learning about the deal. He added that he prays "for the sake of American free market capitalism and my support and appreciation of low taxes that it stops here." Reality check: To be sure, a tilt in favor of government power and away from free-market orthodoxy has been underway for years. But Trump's moves are the splashiest yet — and unlike years past, receive little public pushback from global leaders and CEOs. The bottom line: Brace yourself for a new economic era, one in which the White House wields even bigger influence over the global economy and private industry.

Stephen Miran, who has been nominated to serve as a Federal Reservegovernor until the end of the year, is a placeholder. He isn’t a candidate for the chairmanship. which falls vacant next May. But as placeholders go, he’s a very interesting one, and not just for his authorship of a now-notorious “User’s Guide” to restructuring global trade that has guided US tariff policy.

As chairman of President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, Miran has shown great loyalty as a spokesman for tariff policy. That is doubtless his chief appeal. He can be expected to vote for a rate cut as soon as he can join the Federal Open Market Committee, along with the two Trump appointees who dissented by voting for a cut last month. He won’t have time to make any substantive difference, but his Manhattan Institute paper published last year calling to reform the Fed’s governance, and attacking the status quo for encouraging “groupthink,” suggests that pressure for radical change will intensify.

The range of Miran’s proposals for the Fed is almost as breathtakingly ambitious as his plans for world trade, which involved charging foreigners a fee for investing in the US and a possible “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to coordinate a weakening of the dollar. Those plans have gone very quiet as the dollar has fallen on its own while bond investors have been restive. His ideas for the Fed center on “monetary federalism” with more power for the regional Fed presidents and less direct influence for the FOMC; and as they don’t involve dealing with other countries, they have a better chance of happening.

Trump’s choice not to name a potential next chairman to the role suggests that he now accepts that displacing incumbent Jerome Powell would be an unnecessary risk. Instead, there is a race straight out of reality television, with four candidates taking a lead since June on the Kalshi prediction market:


Everything will come to an Apprentice-like denouement when Trump makes his pick. After the shock of the Aug. 1 revisions to US unemployment data, showing far weaker employment than initially reported, this seems a recipe for uncertainty and upheaval. None of this is showing up in markets.

To explain why, look at the Bank of England. The UK economy is in far worse shape than the US. Both unemployment and inflation are higher:


It also boasts an almost comically divided Monetary Policy Committee at the BOE. Two dissents came as a shock at the Fed; such an outcome would have been an outbreak of harmony in Threadneedle Street. Last week’s MPC held two votes after the first resulted in a tie — four to hold, four to cut by 25 basis points, and one to cut by 50. Cutting by 25 basis points eventually won 5-4.

This has had no appreciable impact on rate expectations. According to overnight index swaps, the projected Bank Rate for the end of this year has been more stable than fed funds, even though the Fed maintained unanimity until July:


The UK experience reflects good economists grappling with an extremely difficult situation. The market view of their likely path has reflected traders’ attempts to wrestle with the same issues. Even though the Fed has been far more united and clear in its guidance, that has added up to a bumpier road — because of the imponderable effect of tariffs, the political uncertainties, and then the shocking payroll revision.

Dissent is not in itself damaging. Miran will be a dove, but his vote won’t swing the committee, and the balance of evidence is in any case shifting toward the doves. The jobs revision brought inflation forecasts, a potential barrier to rate cuts, back into line:


July’s consumer price inflation, due Tuesday, is the next potential impediment. Almost all economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect a rise to or slightly beyond the Fed’s 3% upper-bound target. Nobody expects much worse than that. These forecasts overlap with total confidence in a September Fed cut, with or without Miran:


That helps explain the greatest reason why markets are treating the upheavals with equanimity: The numbers aren’t that bad, even after the jobs revision (equivalent to only about 0.15% of the US workforce). David Roberts, head of fixed income at Nedgroup Investments, offers some cold water:

OK, so there were some downward revisions to prior numbers. The current figures were a rounding error below consensus. Average earnings exceeded expectations, the unemployment rate was unchanged, and those employed worked LONGER than normal. Sure, the numbers ain't great — it's in my interests as a bond guy to talk the economy down. But dire? Not even close.

Daniel Von Ahlen of TS Lombard says the US labor market is in “a low-hiring, low-firing equilibrium.” He adds that there has been no credit boom and no obvious macro malinvestment; private-sector balance sheets are in robust health and real incomes are growing too fast for a recession (even if they have moderated).

On the stock market, near record highs, cyclicals are beating defensive stocks to a record extent, despite sluggish signals from Institute of Supply Managers data. “One interpretation is that they are being complacent,” says John Higgins of Capital Economics. “Another is that the economic outlook is better than the ISM surveys suggest.”

Absent evidence to the contrary, the market will allow the turbulence at the Fed to continue without complaint. But everyone, not just Miran, should be aware that that could change if the economy unambiguously weakens.




The Fed’s well-advertised pivot to light-touch regulation was gathering momentum even before the Miran appointment. The new risk-based capital rule, which simplifies how banks calculate the capital buffer they must hold, could arrive as soon as the first quarter of 2026. That’s a significant setback to the Fed’s 1,087-page Basel III endgame proposal, launched after the 2023 banking crisis. Michelle Bowman, the new vice chair for supervision, is leading the charge, which is crucial to the aggressive Trump 2.0 deregulation agenda.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that “the growth of private credit tells me the regulated banking system has been too tightly constrained.” It might also imply that private credit hasn’t been constrained enough, but his approach implies that both profits and share prices could benefit from deregulation.

This goes beyond bank capital. Gavekal Research’s Tan Kai Xian points out that April’s relaxation of crypto guidelines for banks and the lift for stablecoins underscore Bessent’s influence. Liberalizing 401(k)s should also boost the financial sector, with the president signing an order last week to allow pension plans to invest in private assets, including crypto. The move raises potential returns and risks for savers, while substantially helping quoted financial groups’ quest for profits.

The forceful deregulation pivot is reminiscent of the landmark reforms by the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations — which spurred huge activity on Wall Street and arguably led to the Global Financial Crisis.

Financials already have momentum from robust second-quarter earnings growth, which jumped to over 15% from about 4% in the prior quarter. The sector’s projected 20.4% year-on-year EPS gain ranks second only to tech. As a result, bank shares have mended much of the damage caused by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in 2023, although they have lagged the rest of the market in the last few weeks:


This leaves room for optimism on US bank stocks. Relative to the market, they have started a fitful rise from multi-decade lows — but remain far from mending the damage done by the GFC. This chart is from Societe Generale’s Manish Kabra:


Source: Societe Generale
Their balance sheets have been tested twice, in 2020 during the pandemic and again during the crisis two years ago, which underscores the significance of the recent strong earnings. Confidence in the numbers on their books now appears to be total. The standard metric for the sector, the multiple of price-to-book value (assets minus liabilities) is now higher for US banks than it was before the GFC. The same is not true of banks in the rest of the developed world:


Bank shares’ underperformance thus reflects weaker profitability, rather than concerns about their soundness or asset quality. Kabra therefore argues that deregulation should help them catch up with the higher-risk part of the sector, which it has lagged since 2023:

Financials remain our key overweight, and we expect the current backdrop to be conducive to further outperformance of the higher-beta part of the sector. The context should also favor small and mid caps given their higher domestic US exposure, and we would expect them to outperform, especially those with exposure to financials and industrials.

Smaller banks would appear to be particularly interesting because they have failed to recover from the regional banking crisis:


Source: Societe Generale
Deregulation should free up excess capital, allowing swifter clearance of bank mergers and acquisitions such as the approval of Capital One’s acquisition of Discover Financial Services in April.

Past liberalizations of the financial sector are contentious, to put it mildly. Regulators elsewhere don’t have the same zeal for easing bank rules, but if the US program succeeds, they may hold off from planned tightenings, and ease other post-GFC banking rules as former IMF Chief Economist Maurice Obstfeld notes in this paper. Historically, US financial deregulation has fueled global competition:

Where the US leads, other jurisdictions may follow. Notably, the European Union, the UK, and Canada have all delayed their implementation of more stringent bank capital standards under the Basel III “endgame” framework while they wait to see in what form the US goes ahead with the new rules, or whether it will ditch the plan altogether.

Counterintuitively, Europe’s banks might benefit most from US deregulation. Fiscal stimulus in Europe and China is poised to be stronger than in the US. Further, tariffs will be inflationary in the US and deflationary everywhere else — giving other central banks greater scope to cut rates. The weakening dollar has already helped them to a great rally this year:


Ultimately, bank deregulation, combined with fiscal expansion and monetary easing, should support global growth and help to offset tariffs, at least in the short term. It is up to regulators, and the self-control of financiers, to avoid a longer-term repeat of the speculative disaster of 2008.





jog on
duc

 

[ShareSuccess]

G'day Duc

Keep up the great content mate!....I look forward to Reading & trying to Digest all the information in my quest to find a few gold nuggets i can mine into the Future!

OK!....That's enough brown Nosing for Now ha ha

Question?....I'm looking for Some idea's, some ETFs for Short/Medium/Long term....Can you please give me what you consider to be the best for S/M/L terms?

Greatly Appreciated!
SS

P.s They do Not have to be Specific ETFs, can be simple sectors And or areas of interest!...Thanks!

 

[ducati916]

G'day Duc

Keep up the great content mate!....I look forward to Reading & trying to Digest all the information in my quest to find a few gold nuggets i can mine into the Future!

OK!....That's enough brown Nosing for Now ha ha

Question?....I'm looking for Some idea's, some ETFs for Short/Medium/Long term....Can you please give me what you consider to be the best for S/M/L terms?

Greatly Appreciated!
SS

P.s They do Not have to be Specific ETFs, can be simple sectors And or areas of interest!...Thanks!

Mr SS

Longer term:

In order of preference:

Stock Screener - Overview electricalequipmentparts industrials

Stock screener for investors and traders, financial visualizations.

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Stock Screener - Overview engineeringconstruction industrials

Stock screener for investors and traders, financial visualizations.

finviz.com

Stock Screener - Overview aerospacedefense industrials

Stock screener for investors and traders, financial visualizations.

finviz.com

Stock Screener - Overview energy

Stock screener for investors and traders, financial visualizations.

finviz.com

Stock Screener - Overview toolsaccessories industrials

Stock screener for investors and traders, financial visualizations.

finviz.com

Gold
PHYS

Uranium
CCJ

Short term: days to 1 week

SPY, QQQ

Longer Term Shorts

MSTR
IBIT
NRG

Medium term nothing really.

There weren't any S&P 500 earnings reactions on Monday, but one of the world's largest Gold mining stocks had a reaction that caught our attention. When it comes to mining stocks, the math is simple - rising commodity prices plus flat costs equals explosive margin growth. That’s the beauty of this industry... Once the infrastructure is in place, every extra dollar in commodity prices drops almost straight to the bottom line. In Gold, where prices have surged to record highs over the last year, the right companies aren’t just keeping up with the metal… they’re lapping it. Franco-Nevada $FNV is a prime example. This isn’t a dig-and-hope type of miner - it’s a royalty and streaming powerhouse that collects revenue from some of the world’s best mines without the operational headaches. That means when Gold rallies, they get the upside without the heavy lifting or risk. In Monday's report, revenue and EPS came in above expectations, but the real fireworks were in the price action. The sellers tried to slam the stock early, only for the bulls to power it back to close near session highs. It was the market's way of sending us an unambiguous message: there's an overwhelming amount of demand for this stock. If you’re interested in trading the best stocks in the mining industry, check out ASC Gold Rush - where Sam Gatlin and Jason Perz track the sector’s strongest setups and lay out actionable trade ideas. Now, let's dig into the fundamentals and technicals of Franco-Nevada!

Flat costs, fat profits

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Outrunning the metal itself

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*Click the image to enlarge it Gold prices are up 40% year-over-year. That’s impressive - but Franco-Nevada’s net income is up 210%. The operating leverage they possess is tremendous. Across every significant metric, they are delivering growth well beyond Gold’s gains. The company isn't just riding the wave of a new secular uptrend in precious metals - they're surfing ahead of it. This is all powered by disciplined cost control and top-tier asset exposure.

Four failures, then the setup of the decade

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*Click the image to enlarge it For years, Franco-Nevada has been carving out a textbook accumulation pattern. Slow and steady... Now, the stock is on the cusp of breaking out to blue skies. If the bulls can stick the landing, the price will be in a brand-new primary uptrend. With technicals, fundamentals, and macro tailwinds all aligned, we think it's go time for FNV.

The quarter that changed everything

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*Click the image to enlarge it From 2023 into early 2025, Franco-Nevada was a serial earnings disappointment, suffering five consecutive negative reactions. Then came Q1 2025, when revenue growth exploded +43% year-over-year, and the stock snapped the dreaded beatdown streak. This sparked a multi-week rally, which brought the price to where it is today. Now the stock has delivered three straight positive earnings reactions, each one reinforcing the bull case. Our favorite setups occur when fundamentals transition from a liability to an asset, accompanied by improving technicals.

Hedge funds are increasingly giving up on oil as the most profitable commodity play out there, with a Bloomberg analysis of some 700 funds’ strategies indicating that money managers have been betting against oil throughout 2025.

- Post-COVID recovery was the main engine of hedge funds’ oil craze, further boosted by the Russia-Ukraine war and ensuing sanctions, creating an almost four-year prevalence of long oil positions up until September 2024.

- Renewable energy stocks have outperformed oil since Trump came to office, with hedge funds now betting on AI driving a boom in electricity generation that would need to be satiated by clean energy, hence the industry’s net long on wind stocks even though Trump has called off US federal funding.

- With China actively promoting consolidation in its solar sector and Trump contributing to more than $22 billion cancelled renewable projects in the US, hedge funds believe the clean energy projects of the future will be more transparent and cost-efficient without public funds.

Market Movers

- US oilfield services giant SLB (NYSE:SLB) landed a huge six-well drilling contract in Iraq to increase production at the 4.6 TCf Akkas gas field in the country’s western Anbar governorate, aiming for 100 MMCf/d of output within one year.

- Norway’s state oil firm Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) was forced to delay drilling at the 350 MMboe Rosebank field, UK’s largest undeveloped discovery, after the British government requested additional assessments of Scope 3 emissions.

- Malaysia’s national energy company Petronas plans to expand the share of its international upstream portfolio to 60% over the next decade, up from the 40-45% currently, as domestic oil and gas reserves mature.

- Global energy trader Hartree Partners is reportedly in talks to buy French agricultural trader Touton, which has been trading cocoa for 150 years and controls around 10% of the world’s output.

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

The extension of the US-China trade truce has sparked some upbeat sentiment across the commodity spectrum; however, the impact on oil markets has been fairly muted, with ICE Brent clinging on to the $66 per barrel mark. The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska this Friday is set to be the main trendsetter for the upcoming weeks, with a failure to reach a deal most certainly triggering further US pressure on buyers of Russian oil.

OPEC Hikes 2026 Oil Demand Outlook. Running counter to industry consensus, OPEC lifted its demand growth forecast for next year by 100,000 b/d to 1.38 million b/d in its monthly report, keeping 2025 numbers unchanged, whilst cutting non-OPEC+ supply growth to 630,000 b/d.

Chinese Refiners Curb Their Saudi Purchases. Saudi Arabia’s crude exports to China are set to decline in September after the Asian powerhouse’s refiners nominated only 43 million barrels for the month (1.43 million b/d), down 200,000 b/d compared to July-August outflows.

The Race for Citgo Is Heating Up. US miner Gold Reserve (CVE:GRZ) and global commodity giant Vitol will be squaring off for the much-coveted assets of Venezuela-owned refiner Citgo Petroleum, with the latter offering $8.45 billion ahead of the final sale hearing on August 18.

Iraq Paralyzed by Nationwide Blackout. Almost all of Iraq was debilitated by a nationwide power outage that occurred after a sudden shutdown at the Hamidiya power plant damaged the electricity transmission network, with the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan being the only exception.

Forest Fires Halt Turkish Straits Passage. Turkish authorities suspended shipping traffic through the Dardanelles Strait this week as rampant wildfires ravaged the south of the passage, hampering flows of Russian crude and refined products that are loaded in the country’s Black Sea ports.

Beijing Fights Back Against Canadian Canola. China’s Ministry of Commerce slappedpreliminary anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola imports, setting the levy at a hefty 75.8% and making it effective as soon as August 14, despite sourcing almost all its imports from Canada.

Congo Rejigs Terms After Failed Oil Auction. The Democratic Republic of Congo is working to reform its fiscal terms for oil production following its latest licensing round, launched in 2022 after a 15-year hiatus, which failed to generate interest from oil majors, with only three blocks awarded out of 27.

ADNOC Nears Santos Takeover. ADNOC, the national oil company of UAE’s Abu Dhabi, has extended its six-week due diligence period to finalize its $18.7 billion takeover bid for Australia’s upstream giant Santos (ASX:STO) to August 22, seeking to comply with regulatory requirements.

Germany Eyes US-Style Solar Subsidy Cuts. Germany’s solar industry warned its government against ending subsidies for new rooftop solar panels, introduced back in 2000, after the Economy Minister stated that new rooftop systems no longer need public funding as Berlin boosts defence spending.

Norway Readies for First Frontier Auction Since 2021. Norway’s Energy Ministry is preparing to launch its next licensing round, offering frontier blocks for the first time in four years, after the Labour government’s 2021 four-year moratorium on frontier drilling expired.

The World’s Wind Champion Falls by the Wayside. Denmark’s Orsted (CPH:ORSTED), the world’s largest wind developer, saw its shares collapse this week after it asked shareholders for $9.4 billion to fund its Sunrise Wind project off the US East Coast, despite Trump’s suspension of licensing.

China’s Lithium Mining Woes Boost Prices. China’s top EV battery maker CATL (SHE:300750) said it had suspended production at its Yichun lithium mine amid a broader crackdown on overcapacity, sending lithium carbonate prices up 8% on Monday, to ¥73,000 per tonne ($10,150/mt).

Jellyfish Derail France’s Nuclear Plants. The restart of four reactors at France’s Gravelines nuclear plant has been delayed by the operator EDF by a week as 3.6 GW of capacity was forced offline by a swarm of jellyfish detected within the plant’s cooling systems, citing global warming as the cause.



No longer are America's most important economic institutions politically untouchable.

Why it matters: Econ wonks — those far more comfortable with large datasets than the inner dealings of Washington — won't just question the significance of indicators or policy decisions.

• Now they will wonder whether they can trust if data, or monetary policy conclusions, reflect reality or political motivations.

Driving the news: Trump said last night he would nominate Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• "Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE," Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Details: Antoni, a frequent BLS critic, got his Ph.D. in 2020 from Northern Illinois University and is chief economist at the Heritage Foundation's Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.

• Former White House adviser Steve Bannon had been pushingAntoni as a preferred MAGA candidate for the role.
• Antoni is the second former Heritage economist picked by Trump to lead BLS, after William Beach in 2017. (Beach has recently blasted Trump's firing of BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer.)

What to watch: There is no evidence to suggest the BLS is fudging the data to make Trump appear more or less favorable.

• But the pick raised questions among economists on the right and the left about what qualified Antoni to lead the agency — beyond his support of Trump.

It is also unclear what types of sweeping changes Antoni might implement in the near term, a possibility that could leave Wall Street in the dark for a longer stretch than usual.

• Antoni told "Fox Business" on Monday that the BLS "should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data."

What they're saying: Antoni's "work at Heritage has frequently included elementary errors or nonsensical choices that all bias his findings in the same partisan direction," Stan Veuger, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote in an email to Axios.

Veuger, who also cited Antoni's lack of relevant research or management experience, pointed to a paper from last year co-authored by Antoni.

• It claimed the American economy was in recession since 2022 — which was rebutted thoroughly in a subsequent National Bureau of Economic Research paper.

The big picture: Trump's BLS pick comes days after the White House said Stephen Miran would be appointed to the Federal Reserve board to serve out a term that expires in January.

• Like Antoni, Miran — who is currently the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers — will soon be a top official at an institution he has previously criticized.
• If confirmed, Miran will likely join other Fed governors in calling for rate cuts, as Trump repeated this morning he wants.

The other side: In nominating both Miran and Antoni, Trump has suggested the picks will correct perceived faults at the respective agencies.

• Trump said the July jobs report was "RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME look bad," though he did not offer evidence to support that claim.

The intrigue: The BLS is dealing with plummeting survey response rates and funding cuts that have plagued data collection — key issues Antoni, if confirmed, will face.

• Meanwhile, the Fed is likely to slash interest rates in September with signs of labor market weakness. Some economists question whether that cut might be too late to stop further weakness.

jog on
duc

 

[ShareSuccess]

Thank You sir!

Funny Thing About Your Choices.....I just Finished watching an interview With Eric Sprott Done by Jimmy Conner in 2024 & a U.S Company UUUU energy fuels Just Bought a company i Owned in Australia called Base resources, so Uranium seems Like the Perfect Play along with Gold!

 

[ducati916]

There is a tension between data timeliness and accuracy — one that might redefine how economists, businesses and investors understand the economic shifts happening around them. Why it matters: The U.S. government produces some of the world's premier economic data, though the future of those indicators looks murkier than ever. The big picture: As it stands now, statistics agencies release employment indicators on a monthly basis that can be subject to large revisions — especially amid shifts in immigration policies or economic turning points. The other option: fewer revisions, but the data comes less frequently. Driving the news: The White House is trying to walk back comments from E.J. Antoni, President Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that spooked the economic community. Antoni said the agency should hold off on releasing monthly jobs data, citing flawed models and methodologies. "Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data," Antoni told Fox News Digital in an interview earlier this month that was published yesterday. Bessent said this morning that he would not support the suspension. Still, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is considering tweaks to the data collection process. The intrigue: After Trump fired BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer, top White House economist Stephen Miran told Axios that delaying the data release should be considered, one option to fix late survey responses that might make the data less reliable. "I think there's people who would want to think seriously about the idea of, 'Should we delay the data by a week?' if it improves the reliability of the data," Miran said. Miran also suggested the agency "come up with ways of incentivizing faster responses." Details: The BLS releases a monthly labor market snapshot comprised of two surveys — one of households, another of businesses. That payroll data is revised twice in as many months as the BLS gets more responses from a sample of roughly 120,000 employers queried. Response rates have fallen off a cliff since the COVID-19 pandemic, with no recovery in sight. In January 2020, the survey had a response rate of 60%. As of April, it was 43%. The agency faces budget cuts, putting more strain on its resources. The agency also publishes the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which tallies employment from unemployment insurance tax records from tens of millions of businesses. Trump has, without evidence, accused the BLS of pushing out strong jobs figures, then quietly revising them down later in bids to either help his predecessor or make him look bad. Reality check: The data, released with a lag, is based on more complete information than the monthly jobs report. That means it can shift our prior assumptions about the labor market's health in any given year. What to watch: How the nation collects crucial, market-moving economic data might be changing. But Trump's abrupt firing of the BLS chief — and his nomination of a partisan economist — is stoking mistrust that the reason for the fixes might be political.

Another problem with the potential politicization of government data: There is no private sector source readily available to replace it. Why it matters: Private sector data, like the employment reading from payroll processor ADP, helps inform our understanding of the economy's health. But nothing yet measures up to traditional government indicators. What they're saying: "At the end of the day, all roads lead back to the government data," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, tells Axios. "If we don't have that data, we're going to be lost." Businesses, state and local governments, the Federal Reserve and beyond will substitute private data that might be less reliable and "make decisions that are just plain wrong when it matters the most," Zandi says. No company can create nationally representative datasets without the government-produced benchmarks. For example: Tractor Supply, an agricultural retailer, tells Axios it relies on Morning Consult sentiment data to understand its customers, like figuring out whether they could absorb tariff-related price increases. But that alone is not sufficient. What to watch: Threats to government data come as access to private sector sources looks more strained. When the pandemic hit, corporate data helped shed light on economic trends that even weekly government data was too slow to pick up. "Some initiatives launched during the pandemic have either ended or seen free data access for researchers replaced by a fee-only model," MIT professor and head of the National Bureau of Economic Research Jim Poterba tells Axios. "I would describe this as the pandemic being an unusual time — the fee-based model for data access was much more the norm before COVID-19, and we have returned to that place today." The bottom line: Zandi warns that companies might pull back on data releases, for fear of attack from the administration. "I do wonder whether that might have some impact on the willingness and ability of private sector sources to do what they've been doing," Zandi says.

Strazza this week was talking about how good 2020 was for speculative growth stocks. It was one of those market environments where pressing the gas on high-beta names really paid off. Of course, those periods don’t last forever. What came next was the real “reset". In 2021 and 2022, many of these stocks suffered brutal drawdowns — the kind that wipe the slate clean and force investors to start fresh. Fast forward to today, and the picture looks very different. Some of these “Arky” funds are back at the scene of the crime — retesting the same levels where the last bull market ran out of steam. The difference this time? They’re not just knocking on the door… some are already pushing through to new all-time highs. We saw it first with Space & Exploration $ARKX. Ark Fintech Innovation ETF $ARKF is shaping up well too. But the one that caught my eye recently is the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF $ARKQ.

​

Its top holdings are Tesla 11%, Kratos 11%, Palantir 7%, Teradyne 7%, Archer Aviation 5%. The ETF has been carving out a base for the last four years. Any breakout above ~100 would set the stage for a new leg higher. These are the stocks we want exposure to — the ones that, when they move, they move hard. You might think we talk about these stocks too often. Honestly, we don’t think we’ve written nearly enough about what could be coming next. Yesterday, we bought some calls in $ACHR as the stock is hooking higher. The trade is right there, and a squeeze could be just ahead. If you want to see how we find these kinds of opportunities, Steve is going live on TODAY at 2 pm ET to walk you through his process for spotting the next home runs. He just nailed a trade in Ethereum ($ETHA) calls — up over 1,400% from where he got in.

We’re now past the 90% mark of S&P 500 companies reporting this earnings season. It has been a monster earnings season - one for the record books. There has been a parade of powerful upside surprises, and earnings estimates by Wall Street are now pushing fresh all-time highs. That’s not bearish... You can’t have strong technicals without strong fundamentals to back them up. But not every report is a victory lap. Yesterday's release from Cardinal Health $CAH was one of the rare misses in an otherwise stellar season - a sharp reminder that individual landmines can (and do) still blow up, even in the healthiest market environments. That's exactly why we're working so closely with Herb Greenberg - to identify the weak links in the market.

Here are the latest earnings stats for CAH

​

*Click the image to enlarge it The only report today came from the $25B drug distribution company known for being the main plug for CVS Health $CVS, and the pharmacy segment of UnitedHealth $UNH, Cardinal Health $CAH. The stock had a -6.45 reaction score after reporting mixed results. They posted revenues of $60.16B, versus the expected $60.89B, and earnings per share of $2.08, versus the expected $2.04. Now let's dive into the data and learn more about why the market didn't like this report

CAH had its worst earnings reaction in 17 quarters

​

Cardinal Health fell 7.2% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenue was flat year-over-year, but up 21% excluding a major contract expiration. They announced a new acquisition worth roughly $2.4B of Solaris Health to strengthen its high-margin specialty services segment. The management team issued better-than-expected earnings guidance, but the dilution from the Solaris acquisition more than offset this.

This was a pretty gross earnings reaction from a stock that had been one of the few pockets of relative strength in the Healthcare sector. It marked the decisive resolution of a multi-month distribution pattern and snapped a 5-quarter beat streak (i.e., consecutive positive earnings reactions). Additionally, the bears came out in full force, sparking the worst earnings reaction in 17 quarters. Now, the price is hanging on for dear life at a multi-year uptrend line that has served as support on numerous occasions recently. We expect CAH to trend sideways to lower for the foreseeable future. Thank you for reading -The Beat Team

Editor's Note: Cardinal Health may have stumbled yesterday, but that doesn’t mean healthcare is off the table. In fact, it’s still producing some of the most explosive trades in the market. Case in point: our Breakout Multiplier team recently nailed a trade in Oscar Health $OSCR for a +1,089% gain - their biggest winner of the year. They doubled their money in just five days, pulling their risk capital off the table almost instantly and letting the rest of the position run. That’s what Breakout Multiplier is all about - taking the best technical setups at All Star Charts and hitting them with short-dated options for outsized returns. Big moves. Fast turnarounds. Controlled risk.

While major US stock market indices are back to new highs and the bull market continues on, there are some well-known large-cap stocks that have been just plain bad recently. We screened the large-cap S&P 500 for stocks that have market caps greater than $20 billion that are more than 20% below their 52-week highs as well as down 20%+ over the last year. Within the S&P, there are 31 stocks that fit this criteria, which we've called the large-cap "left behinds" in the table below.

You can probably think of a few of these recent "dogs" off the top of your head. Some of the once-popular stocks that have been left behind include Trade Desk (TTD), Chipotle (CMG), Target (TGT), Schlumberger (SLB), UnitedHealth (UNH), Lockheed Martin (LMT), UPS, and Adobe (ADBE). This is a pretty diversified group of large-cap stocks covering communication services (TTD), the consumer (CMG, TGT), energy (SLB), health care (UNH), defense (LMT), transports (UPS), and tech (ADBE), but had you built an equally-weighted basket of these names starting a year ago, you'd be down 32%!

• Let's get a little funnymental today.
• We can break it down by basic wants and needs.
• For our money, data is better than humans.

Today we're talking about the best fundamental analyst on Wall Street.

Usually you won't hear me talk too much about the funnymentals, but today that's exactly what we're focusing on.

First, let me set the stage.

According to the types of people who actually follow this stuff, consumer spending represents approximately 70% of the U.S. economy.

You've got the Consumer Discretionary stocks, where "Consumers" spend their "Discretionary" income - including retailers, automobiles, and home builders.

Then you've got the Consumer Staples stocks - consumers are going to buy these products regardless of how good or bad the economy might be - toilet paper, cigarettes, potato chips, toothpaste, booze.

When you compare one group of stocks to the other, you're going to get a good idea about the general health of the market.

How Things Work​

Mutual funds represent about $25 trillion of assets in the U.S. equities market.

That's more than double the value of all the exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, right now, just to put in perspective how large the mutual fund market still is.

In a lot of cases, mutual fund managers have to be fully invested, by mandate - that means they can't run to cash, or short stocks, or buy bitcoin or gold or any of those other things. They have to be almost fully invested in stocks at all times.

The way they get paid is to outperform the market. They don't get paid to make investors money. More specifically, they're incentivized to beat their benchmark, usually something like the S&P 500 Index.

The way they do this is by overweighting the Consumer Discretionary stocks during bull markets and healthy environments while underweighting more defensive Consumer Staples stocks.

During the bear markets, you'll see a flight to safety into the Staples, particularly relative to the more offensive Discretionaries.

Equally Weighed Indexes​

One way to view this ratio is to compare the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLY) and the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLP).

Each of the indexes these funds track are market-cap weighted, so the largest companies represent the biggest allocations in the index.

The thing is, Amazon.com (AMZN) represents 24% of the Discretionary Index, with Tesla (TSLA) alone bringing 15% more.

To get a broader and more balanced look at their relative performance, we can look at the equally weighted versions of each of these sector indexes.

This chart is commonly referred to as the "Best Fundamental Analyst on Wall Street":



For my money, if this ratio is above those Global Financial Crisis highs from 2007 as well as the post-COVID peak in late 202, I find it difficult to be overly bearish.

This is a major secular breakout in this relative trend, and the path of least resistance is higher.

Come talk to me if this ratio is below all those former highs, and maybe we can have a different conversation.

But, based on all the information we have right now, this is not a trend we want to fight at all.

If that ratio is above all those former highs, we want to continue to put money to work into risk assets and to participate in this bull market.

People are bearish out there. And I think they're wrong.

This chart confirms that.

And I'll go with the chart over the humans any day of the week.

• $4 trillion is not a lot compared to $124 trillion.
• It's easier than ever to access upside.
• See you at Crypto $5 trillion.

The total value of all the Cryptocurrency in the world hit $4 trillion last night for the first time ever.

This cycle has been different, at least so far, in a few ways.

First of all, I'm not getting any calls or texts from high school and college buddies, yet, about which Cryptos they should be buying.

Historically, in prior cycles, they don't ask "if" they should buy Crypto, but specifically which ones.

That's usually near the tops.

You're also not seeing many people on Twitter posting crypto prices, as if we didn't all have the quotes on our computers and phones as well.

In past cycles, the self-proclaimed "Diamond Hands" (or "Laser Eyes," depending on the era) would blast out every new high as if they had some secret terminal the rest of us mere mortals couldn't access.

I can keep going about the sentiment. But another major point about this cycle that I think is going unnoticed is how much simpler it is to trade and participate in the upside than it was in the past.

I've been trading Crypto for more than 12 years now. I've seen a lot. I can assure you, with every cycle it was harder and more complicated to transact, with new tokens, new blockchains, new derivative assets, and new types of wallets.

I remember having to make six to eight different moves just to purchase one token.

That's no longer the case.

Tradfi (that's short for "traditional finance") investors now have ETFs, options on those ETFs and Crypto-related stocks such as Coinbase (COIN) and Strategy (MSTR) as well as a slew of Crypto mining companies and new IPOs regularly being offered.

That wasn't the case just a couple of years ago.

And even on-chain you can trade almost anything now on apps such as Spot Trading, a company I'm also an investor in.

Four Trillion Dollars​

The value of all the Cryptocurrencies in the world hit $4 trillion last night for the first time ever.

Here's the long-term chart showing that appreciation over time:



That sounds like a lot of money doesn't it? $4 trillion?

It's not.

That's one stock in the S&P 500.

All these tokens can go to zero tomorrow, and it won't matter. There aren't any global macro implications for what is still a small asset class.

The total value of the stock market is about $124 trillion, more than 30 times the value of Crypto.

I don't mean to characterize that as "bearish."

In fact, as someone who's as long Crypto as I am, it looks bullish to me.

I mean, how much smaller can this asset get?

Journalists Still Hate It​

One thing we love around here is when everybody's wrong. We even named this newsletter after that concept.

If all the journalists are telling you Crypto is a "good buy," it's probably a "goodbye."

If they think prices are going up and they're saying nice things, history shows prices will likely do the opposite.

That's why I was thrilled to see them trying to scare the hell out of you this weekend in Barron's:



I personally liked the time bomb aspect. Time bombs are scary, especially on Saturday...

I think they're wrong - as they usually are on important trends.

And I don't mean to pick on Barron's. I've been a subscriber to Barron's for my entire career.

I have friends who work there.

I also have friends who are journalists.

It's all good.

But they're wrong.

And I tell them to their faces. And then we go grab beers.

It's like a ritual at this point. They get it. I get it. And we all get to play this game together.

Them with their ink, me with my money.

I like my way better.

I hope you do too!

I'll see you at Crypto $5 trillion.


I still hate it. LOL.

Interesting timing, and an admission the USD has fallen from 1/42 oz to 1/3300 oz of gold in the past 54 yrs, a CAGR of 8.4% (which, since everyone suddenly cares about economic data accuracy, is MUCH higher than the official reported US inflation rate of the past 54 years.)

With all the talk in mainstream media denigrating Trump’s tariffs, it is critical to understand that neoliberal free trade of the past 25-40 yrs have left the US begging China (literally) for military grade rare earths.

Any tariff discussion that does not address this fact is


Sen. Graham supports Pres. Trump's efforts to make USDs no longer good for Russian oil, Indian goods, Chinese goods, or European goods.

The USD not being good for anything from most of the Eurasian continent would definitely be a gamechanger alright.


Why can’t (or won’t) the US tariff gold (a useless pet rock in many US investors’ eyes) when the US is sanctioning or tariffing oil and lots of other more useful goods?

Good question for the mainstream financial media to ask the Administration.



jog on
duc

 

[ShareSuccess]

Big move into UNH & ELV today?.....is this a sign that the big Boy's in Town are Moving into defense mode?.....is the Market getting a little too froffy?

 

[divs4ever]

Driving the news: The White House is trying to walk back comments from E.J. Antoni, President Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that spooked the economic community.

• Antoni said the agency should hold off on releasing monthly jobs data, citing flawed models and methodologies.
• "Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data," Antoni told Fox News Digital in an interview earlier this month that was published yesterday.
• Bessent said this morning that he would not support the suspension. Still, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is considering tweaks to the data collection process.

spooked ?
on might think the traders and investors would be rushing to buy champers and ready to celebrate real guidance on the economy

the downside would be those using AI would be more accurate as well so tougher competition

'tweaks ' ???

The other option: fewer revisions, but the data comes less frequently.

fly up Javier Milei and let him bring up a half a dozen of his chainsaws

sure the day traders will have a tougher time without exploiting those obvious inaccuracies in the monthly data but the BLS would have some chance reclaiming some credibility

What they're saying: "At the end of the day, all roads lead back to the government data," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, tells Axios. "If we don't have that data, we're going to be lost."

??? are they so lost that they don't understand how lost they are ??

 

[ducati916]

Big move into UNH & ELV today?.....is this a sign that the big Boy's in Town are Moving into defense mode?.....is the Market getting a little too froffy?

Yes

First post of a few catching up the last 3 days or so.

Yesterday we published a blog post highlighting 31 large-cap stocks in the S&P 500 that have been struggling mightily in the midst of a broader bull market. These are stocks with market caps above $20 billion that were down 20%+ from 52-week highs and down 20%+ over the last year. The list included well-known names like Chipotle (CMG), Lululemon (LULU), United Health (UNH), Eli Lilly (LLY), and Adobe (ADBE). All of these stocks have been dogs so far in 2025. We concluded the post with this: "Of course, the name of the game is to buy low and sell high, right? We aren't sure which ones will make comebacks, but there will likely be a few that you wished you'd bought when revisiting this list of left-behinds a year from now." One day doesn't make a trend, but amazingly, these "left behind" stocks are staging a big comeback today. While the Mag 7 ETF (MAGS) is in the red today, the 31 struggling stocks from yesterday's post are up an average of 1.5%. LULU, LLY, UNH, and ADBE are all up 3%+ as investors look to be rotating out of winners into losers in a big way. Now let's see how long it lasts.

​

We're seeing massive rotation within the market today that we covered in our Chart of the Day, and we'll have more insights on the action in tonight's Closer for members.

• Banks, biotechs and a big bet...
• What's in a name?
• I see dramatic upside from here.

Everybody hates small-cap stocks.

We've rarely seen this kind of extreme positioning in any direction ever in stock market history.

We talked about it on Tuesday: Russell 2000: The Sheep Are Short, We're the Wolves Lurking.

As a reminder, the Russell 2000 Index represents the smallest 2,000 stocks in the Russell 3000 Index.

Fun fact: The Russell 3000 Index represents more than 98% of all investable assets in the U.S. equities market.

The remaining 1,000 stocks in the index, the largest ones, make up the Russell 1000 Index.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the ratio between the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), or the smallest 2,000 stocks, and the iShares Russell 1000 ETF (IWB), or the largest 1,000 stocks, is down to historic lows.

And I think that's about to change.

What Are Small-Caps?​

Whenever we look at an index or think about rotation in and out of certain groups, we want to make sure we understand the drivers of those fund-flows.

What's in these things?

Well, in the Russell 2000, you've got a ton of regional bank stocks and you've got a ton of biotechnology stocks.

I wonder if this country actually needs 250 regional banks in the Russell 2000.

I'm thinking that's a little bit unnecessary. But, hey, what do I know?

As for the 200-plus biotech stocks in the Russell 2000, that may seem like a lot. But I don't personally have a problem with hundreds of companies trying to help people and save lives. I'm good with that.

In either case - regional banks and/or biotechs - I don't get a say in the matter.

The bottom line is this: If you want a better idea of the next direction for small-caps, you must start with regional banks and biotechs.

That right there is a quarter of the entire index. And here's what it looks like:



They haven't done anything in years. They're what we refer to in the business as a "hot mess."

And everyone agrees.

Regional banks and biotechs are coming off some of their highest short interest ever.

Speculators in the futures market, which consist of asset managers and hedge funds, have their largest net short position in the Russell 2000 ever.

They're all wrong.

We're Buying Small-Caps​

I decided to start buying biotech stocks at the end of July.

This week I added to my biotech positions.

You know what? I see even more opportunities out there that I want to participate in, and I'll probably buy more biotechs next week.

Right now, I don't have enough exposure to regional banks.

I encourage you to check them out, one by one - I did that yesterday, actually.

Find me a better looking regional bank chart than this one:

This is the artist formerly known as Bank of the Ozarks, now doing business as Bank OZK (OZK).

I think they changed the name because of the famous television show, "Ozark," which won a bunch of Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, and Actors Guild Awards.

The show is all about drug trafficking and murder and stuff. So, probably not the type of thing a small regional bank wants to be associated with.

Maybe it was something else; I don't really know.

I also have a hard time calling Google "Alphabet" or Square "XYZ."

It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

Besides, Bank of the Ozarks just sounds way cooler than Bank OZK, doesn't it?

Anyway, there are other banks out there whose stocks look attractive right here. It's not just OZK.

And everybody hates them.

Good.

We're buyers.

New inflation data confirms anecdotes from Corporate America: U.S. importers are bearing the brunt of tariffs so far — costs that look set to be passed along to consumers. Why it matters: The extent to which higher trade-related costs fall more heavily on overseas suppliers, American companies or U.S. consumers will define the Trump-era economy in the years ahead. Driving the news: The Producer Price Index, a measure of prices paid to wholesalers, came in fiery hot, rising 0.9% in July — the biggest gain in three years. For context, economists expected a mere 0.2% monthly increase, following a flat reading in June. The bulk of that increase stemmed from a gauge of profit margins included in the report's measure of service sector costs. Within services, margins at wholesalers and retailers rose 2%, with stronger margins for machinery and equipment wholesalers leading the surge. Between the lines: President Trump has imposed some of the highest tariffs in a century on foreign goods. The U.S. government collected almost $30 billion in tariff-related revenue in July — a new monthly record — according to the Treasury Department. Someone is paying. The tariffs are raising costs for businesses in a way that — at least in July — pushed wholesalers to hike prices to cushion the blow to profits. The data raises "questions about the risk of stronger tariff passthrough looking forward," Evercore ISI economist Marco Casiraghi wrote in a client note. "If the scope for compressing margins in the wholesale and distribution sector remains limited, higher import prices would eventually be passed on to consumers." What to watch: "In some industries, the share that's paid by the consumer will probably be rising over time," Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee told reporters yesterday. "We talked to a major apparel manufacturer who said that they're planning price increases for the tariffs that have already been put in place," Goolsbee added. But other industries are "holding their breath to figure out where things are going to settle before incorporating them into price increases," he said. The intrigue: Earlier this week, the Consumer Price Index indicated more muted tariff-related price increases than in June. "I think given the amount of revenue the tariffs ... have raised — and yet the lack of any pass-through to the end user, I think is stunning," Joe Lavorgna, an economist who serves as the senior counsel to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, told Axios after the report was released. What to watch: The White House is betting that tariff-related price hikes will fall on exporters, in the form of them accepting lower prices for their goods — or that businesses will accept a hit to their margins. Trump this week called on Goldman Sachs to fire its economist after it issued a report predicting that while U.S. businesses have initially absorbed the tariffs, the impact will ultimately shift to consumers.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is still talking like the future belongs to him, a week after the rollout of ChatGPT raised a storm of criticism and questions about his strategy, Axios' Ina Fried writes.

• "If you project our growth forward pretty soon, like billions of people a day will be talking to ChatGPT," Altman said during an on-the-record dinner with Ina and a few other reporters at the Mediterranean restaurant Dalida in San Francisco last night.
• "ChatGPT will say more words a day than all humans say, at some point, if we stay on our growth rate."

Altman has heard the concerns, integrated some lessons learned, and is charging forward with plans to spend trillions of dollars to build a slew of products and services, led by an even more ubiquitous ChatGPT.

• "You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future," Altman said.
• "And you should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands and be like, 'Oh, this is so crazy. It's so reckless and whatever.' ... And we'll just be like: 'You know what? Let us, like, do our thing."

On last week's launch of GPT-5, Altman invoked Dickens' "the best of times, it was the worst of times."

• "You have people that are like, 'You took away my friend. You're horrible. I need it back,'" he said, referring to users who wanted to keep using OpenAI's older models. At the same time, Altman said the company is finding scientists saying they can finally do real research using GPT-5.
• OpenAI has also seen traffic to its API double within 48 hours, to the point that it's limited by compute capacity. "We have really got the full spread of the human experience with this one," he said.

Fielding questions for 90 minutes, Altman also said:

1. If Google is forced to sell its Chrome browser as part of an antitrust settlement, Altman would like to buy it.
2. A brain-computer interface company along the lines of Musk's Neuralink is something Altman said he's interested in setting up: "I would like to be able to think something and have ChatGPT respond to it."
3. On his social media spat with Elon Musk: "There's no grand strategy ... It was probably a mistake."

We may be deep in the doldrums of this earnings season, but Thursday was a big day. Four more S&P 500 names stepped up to the plate yesterday - spanning communication equipment, farm and heavy machinery, luxury goods, and packaging - and the scoreboard was all red. A couple of the reports were from industry behemoths, while the other two were from significantly smaller names. The market was already on edge after fresh economic data rattled investors Thursday morning, and a sharp outside reversal in the 10-year U.S. yield (+1% on the day) only added to the selling pressure. For the bulls, it was a tough session, with every reaction skewing negative.

Here are the latest earnings stats from the S&P 500

​

*Click the image to enlarge it The $275B provider of networking hardware and software, Cisco Systems $CSCO, had a -1.43 reaction score after reporting a double beat. They reported revenues of $14.67B, versus the expected $14.62B, and earnings per share of $0.99, versus the expected $0.98. The $130B heavy machinery manufacturer, John Deere $DE, had a nasty -4.63 reaction score after reporting a double beat. This was the worst earnings reaction in 14 quarters. Their revenue and EPS actuals met the market's expectations. Now let's dive into the data and talk about the most important beats

CSCO was punished for a double beat

​

Cisco Systems fell 1.6% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenue increased 8% year-over-year, led by the Networking segment, which grew by 12% over the same timeframe. They reported a record number of AI infrastructure orders from web-scale customers, with two of them placing over $1B each in orders. The one big disappointment from this report was the forward guidance... Management is being cautious!

In Sunday's column of the Weekly Beat, we highlighted how everything changed for this stock after its Q1 2025 earnings report, which snapped 4 consecutive quarters of negative revenue and earnings growth. This also sparked a new streak of positive earnings reactions. We thought Thursday's earnings reaction could potentially push the price toward the .com bubble peak for the first time. However, the market had other ideas... This turned out to be a significant setback, not only by snapping a streak of positive earnings reactions, but also in the technicals. CSCO failed to hold its breakout, so now we expect more range-bound price action between 70 and 66 for the foreseeable future.

DE had its worst earnings reaction in 14 quarters

​

John Deere fell 6.8% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenue and net income fell year-over-year by 9% and 26%, respectively. Worse yet, operating profit fell a whopping 32% year-over-year. To make a bad quarter worse, the management's guidance was a big disappointment. They expect most business segments to continue declining by double digits.

In Sunday's column of the Weekly Beat, we highlighted how this company has experienced significant top and bottom line declines in 6 consecutive quarters. Despite that weakness, the stock had been resiliently strong. Thursday's earnings report wasn't good, and the market has seemingly grown tired of the bad news. If you're a bull, seeing one of the world's largest industrial players get blasted like this should raise red flags. This earnings reaction was a textbook bearish gap-n-go from a prolonged consolidation, sparking a new short-term downtrend. We expect this to lead to further downside this year. So long as DE is below 500, the path of least resistance is likely to remain lower for the foreseeable future. Thank you for reading

Friday, August 15, 2025

Thin trading liquidity, rangebound price movements, and almost zero interest in any other topic than the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska have marked this week, with ICE Brent still trading around the $66 per barrel mark. LNG prices have already shed some $0.50/MMBtu this week as gas traders seem to expect some semblance of a deal coming through; however, oil market participants are waiting it out until the very end.

IEA Warns of ‘Bloated’ Crude Oil Markets. Directly contradicting OPEC, the International Energy Agency predicted that global oil supply would rise quickly than expected in 2025-2026, forecasting a 2.5 million b/d output hike this year, up 400,000 b/d compared to its previous outlook, citing OPEC+ unwinding.

Venture Global Wins Key Court Case of 2025. US LNG developer Venture Global (NYSE:VG) has won an arbitration case against global energy major Shell (LON:SHEL) over its alleged failure to start delivering LNG cargoes under a long-term contract starting in 2023, sending the firm’s stock up by a hefty 8%.

India Eyes Russian Barrels Again. India’s state-owned refiners IOC, HPCL and BPCL have reportedly restarted their purchases of Russian oil after discounts for the Russian flagship Urals grade widened to almost -$3 per barrel to Dubai, shedding almost $2 per barrel since July differentials peaked.

US Court Reschedules Citgo Auction. A federal court in Delaware rescheduled the long-anticipated auction of Venezuela-held US refiner Citgo Petroleum, after a unit of activist investor Elliott Investment Management landed a last-minute $8.82 billion offer, surpassing Vitol’s recent $8.45 billion proposal.

Angola’s Oil Dreams Failed to Materialize. Almost two years have passed since Angola quit OPEC; however, the African country’s oil production continues to linger around 1.1 million b/d and is set to dip further, with top driller Azule Energy now expecting gas to be the main driver of production growth.

Pemex Gets Former CEO Arrested. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said that Carlos Trevino, the former chief executive of state oil company Pemex in 2017-2018, had been arrested in the US and would be deported to Mexico soon on charges of corruption, having allegedly received some $215,000 in bribes.

South Africa Makes U-Turn on Exploration Drilling. The Western Cape High Court in South Africa rescinded the environmental permit granted to French major TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE) to explore offshore blocks 5,6, and 7, possibly expediting the departure of Total from the African country.

Ukraine Keeps on Droning Russian Refineries. Ukraine struck the 300,000 b/d Volgograd refinery in Russia with drones, having previously targeted Rosneft’s 140,000 b/d Saratov refinery as well as a smaller plant in the southern city of Slavyansk ahead of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.

Canada’s M&A Craze Is Heating Up. Canada’s leading oil producer Cenovus Energy (TSO:CVE) is reportedly in talks with the country’s Indigenous groups to jointly take a $1.5 billion stake in peer oil sands producer MEG Energy (TSO:MEG), seeking to halt Strathcona’s $6 billion hostile takeover.

India to Open Up Uranium Mining. The Indian government is set to allow private companies to mine, import, and process uranium, ending a decades-long state monopoly over the nuclear industry as part of Prime Minister Modi’s plan to expand nuclear generation twelve-fold by 2047.

US Launches Anti-Dumping Probe on Solar. The US Commerce Department has initiated anti-dumping duty investigations on solar cell imports from India, Indonesia, and Laos, claiming that Chinese-headquartered firms are using those countries to resell their solar products into the US market.

Zinc Is Starting Its Own Transatlantic Trade. Global trading house Trafigura is reportedly taking large volumes of zinc previously held in LME-registered warehouses in Singapore and shipping them to the United States, with expectations of a potential squeeze helping to push prices above $2,850 per tonne.

Iraq Eyes Syria’s Recovering Markets. Syria’s gradual return to international politics has also prompted neighbouring Iraq to suggest that the two countries rebuild the 300,000 b/d Kirkuk-Baniyas oil pipeline, heavily damaged during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, as Baghdad aims to find new market outlets.

Chevron Restarts Imports from Venezuela. US oil major Chevron (NYSE:CVX) has loaded its first two cargoes in Venezuela after it received a new sanctions waiver from the Trump administration, with the Beaumont-bound Mediterranean Voyager potentially becoming the first tanker to reach USGC refiners.

When it comes to Latin America, currencies are known to tip the hand for equities. When LATAM currencies outpace the US Dollar, their bond and equity markets tend to follow suit — often outperforming US benchmarks. Right now, the Brazilian Real is threatening to break out of a one-year base against the Greenback. Here it is, pressing against a key resistance level that’s capped every rally attempt for the past twelve months:

​

If BRL can clear the 0.185 level, this breakout should send effects far beyond the FX market. In Brazil, equities and the local currency move hand in hand — you rarely see strong Brazilian stocks without a strong Real. And that’s exactly what’s unfolding here: the MSCI Brazil ETF $EWZ is carving out a similar base to BRL, ready to follow the currency higher.

​

At the end of the day, a Real breakout is a “risk-on” signal for Brazilian stocks and LATAM more broadly. As a commodity currency — linked to oil, metals, and agricultural products — these breakouts often coincide with broad strength across the commodity complex. But there are also some hot growth stocks in Brazil these days. As one of the booming Emerging Market countries, I’m quite interested in those too. Leadership is already showing up at the single-stock level. Here are some ways I’m trading the early innings.

Jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

AI:https://www.advisorhub.com/jpmorgan-robeco-quietly-deploy-ai-in-daily-wall-street-routines/



Full:https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...garbage-rally-who-s-to-blame?srnd=phx-opinion









Full:https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2025/08/13/us-oil-shale-industry-more-with-less



Boeing is exploring new technologies and production efficiencies for the Patriot missile seekers it builds, as global demand for the pricey interceptors skyrockets.
Why it matters: Changes in the formula could reduce costs or boost output. But finding the right mix — and not undercutting performance — is tricky.


Driving the news: In an interview at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama, Boeing executive Jim Bryan told Axios ongoing research-and-development efforts include the introduction of "more solid-state components that are, maybe, lower maintenance," plus "smaller packaging."

• "The mix of technology in what we have today works very well," he said. "There is some apprehension to mess with a really good recipe."

State of play: Boeing, a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin, has produced more than 5,000 Patriot seekers since 2000.

• It hit an all-time high last year, completing more than 500 deliveries.
• "The market has been 'how much and how fast,'" Bryan said. "For the Army, we've asked them to give us a target. They say they need infinite now."

Zoom out: Engagements in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, namely the defense of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, have elevated the Patriot profile.

• Aviation Week on Aug. 6 reported Lockheed was eyeing a "dramatic rise" in interceptor production.
• "People want it because it works," Bryan told me. "That weapon is speaking for itself; that weapon is, essentially, selling itself."

Go deeper: U.S. moves Patriot defenses to Middle East with dozens of C-17 flights

Full:https://www.ft.com/content/ce617187-43ed-4bec-aebf-b1b346c4cfb1?sharetype=blocked

Retail traders are driving off-the-charts volatility when companies release earnings​

The increasing prominence of retail traders in dictating price action isn’t confined to just the world of meme stocks.

They’re also playing a key role in fueling how companies’ share prices behave at a time when every investor’s eyes are on them: upon the release of quarterly results.

“During this 2Q earnings season, retail investors frequently exhibited outsized trading behavior in stocks that experienced significant post-earnings price movements,” JPMorgan strategists led by Arun Jain wrote.

That is, substantial retail activity is associated with massive earnings reactions. The y-axis in the below chart tracks how many standard deviations JPM’s measure of retail buying is above or below its one-year average for a given stock.



Source: JPMorgan
But it’s not always the case that retail is contributing to (or creating) the obvious trend in response to earnings. Sometimes the crowd is coming in with both hands to catch a falling knife in stocks that nosedived after reporting quarterly results.

While retail’s favorite name to buy was still PalantirPLTR $177.35 (-2.15%)over the last week, per JPMorgan, Eli LillyLLY $702.00 (2.68%), The Trade DeskTTD $52.10 (2.66%), and CoreWeaveCRWV $101.45 (0.47%)jumped to near the top of the leaderboard as they seemingly “provided compelling ‘buy-the-dip’ opportunities following disappointing announcements.”





As this has been playing out, Bespoke Investment Group observed that the typical (over?)reaction to earnings reports has been trending higher, reaching levels unseen outside of the global financial crisis.




Source: Bespoke Investment Group

“In the current day and age of easy, commission-free trading on brokerage apps available right on your smartphone, share-price volatility in reaction to stock-specific earnings news has moved increasingly higher,” analysts at Bespoke wrote. “At the same time, overall market volatility hasn’t seen a similar increase, which means that more and more of a stock’s overall performance is coming from the one trading day per quarter when it posts its financial results and forward guidance.”

So, in sum, retail traders are stepping up their activity in names that move on earnings at the same time that stocks are moving more than they used to on earnings!






jog on
duc

 

[divs4ever]

hedge funds having losses on short-sold stocks especially small cap ( 'garbage ' ) stocks

they know the float is limited and the CameStop saga showed the adventurous retail traders how to exploit greedy fund-managers

so can only blame themselves especially if short-selling naked

bitcoin mining .. i looked hard at this in 2008 to 2011 and couldn't get the numbers to look good for the future ( and had about 8 tonnes of computer servers ready to start mining ) BUT the power costs then and in the future even with a 5kw solar array already up and running

to me it looking you needed your own nuclear reactor in the back yard ( only a small one say out of a sub ) to make it long-term viable

Europe building war machines factories are total clowns , first where are the raw commodities coming from ( they have nauseated most of their trading partners ) and then there is the energy and water needed to run those factories and assume most of the staff will be robots

and THEN who will they sell the arms to the EU is broke and Africa now basically hates their guts

now Buffet and Co. is more interesting while i focus on Asia Warren and friends seem to be tiling towards defensive stocks , taking small profits from the big winners

interesting to see the big sell-downs in telco-related stocks , do they think satellite providers are the big move in the future ?

 

[ducati916]

This week’s standout is Healthcare, which jumped six spots in our sector rankings.

​

Even though it’s been one of the weakest performers this year, rotation into the space would make sense as investors look for fresh opportunities. Here’s a look at our overall industry rankings, where Life Sciences Tools and Services climbed into the 8th spot.

​

This is a diverse group, but its move up the ranks this week had everything to do with the rally in Biotech. I’ve been stressing the opportunity in this forgotten sector, and recently highlighted some of our favorite biotech stocks as they start to turn higher. Biotechs are a high-beta, bull market leadership group. When money flows into these names, it is a classic sign of healthy risk appetite from the market. Below are the Top 10 names in the Life Sciences Tools and Servicessubsector, ranked by relative strength.

​

This week’s top pick is Adaptive Biotechnologies $ADPT:

​

ADPT is on the verge of completing a textbook bearish-to-bullish reversal. We like it long above the all-time high VWAP near 12, with a target of 29.

The Game Is Rigged — And Traders Are the Pawns… Walter Lippmann was one of the most influential political commentators of the 20th century — a journalist, media critic, and adviser to multiple U.S. presidents. His 1922 book Public Opinion dissected how the media shapes perceptions, often manufacturing consent rather than informing the public. “That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. The creation of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one which was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not died out.” ―Walter Lippmann,Public Opinion That’s not just political history. It’s the same playbook you see in financial markets every single day. If you’re a trader and you don’t recognize the fingerprints of manufactured narratives, you’re not making independent decisions — you’re reacting on command. The ruling class, whether in politics, media, or finance, has always preferred a population of ignorant pawns to an array of opponents who can mount real resistance. That’s why they cultivate illusions — narratives designed to obscure reality. For traders, those illusions come wrapped in headlines, analyst notes, “breaking news”, and influencer posts designed to get you to act before you think. The Blueprint: Manufacturing Consent Walter Lippmann called it a “revolution in the practice of democracy” back in 1921. His idea — manufacturing consent — was about shaping public opinion through controlled information flow. During WWI, the U.S. Committee on Public Information used blunt propaganda to rally war support. But Edward Bernays, a member of that group and a student of human psychology, perfected a subtler method: Appeal to core fears and desires. Use authority figures to amplify the message. Engineer social conformity until dissent disappears. Perception is now a commodity — available to the highest bidder. That formula has been recycled endlessly — in politics, in advertising, and in markets. Every “Fed pivot” rumor, every viral “X stock to the moon” post follows the same rhythm: create urgency, wrap it in credibility, and let the herd carry it forward. Three Tactics You See in Markets Every Day Bernays’ playbook rested on three pillars: Tie ideas to subconscious fears and desires. In markets, this might be safety (flight to bonds) or greed (FOMO into a breakout). Use perceived authorities to validate the narrative. Think central bankers, Wall Street strategists, or celebrity CEOs. Leverage social conformity. When everyone’s talking about the same trade, the crowd effect pushes even skeptical traders to join in. This isn’t abstract — it’s why “don’t fight the Fed” has more psychological pull than “study liquidity conditions.” Why Conformity Works — Even on Traders Who “Know Better” In the 1950s, Solomon Asch’s experiments showed how easily group consensus can override personal perception. A third of participants consistently gave wrong answers just to match the group, even when the correct answer was obvious. Neuroscientist Gregory Berns later proved this wasn’t just compliance — conformity rewired their perception at the neurological level. The warning is blunt: “Social conformity literally causes the brain to rewrite our reality.” That’s why an entire trading desk can pile into a doomed reversal play even when the chart is flashing a break out. It’s not just peer pressure — it’s altered reality. Authority Bias Is Market Fuel Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in the 1960s revealed something even more dangerous: the power of authority to override moral limits. In markets, “authority” isn’t a man in a lab coat — it’s a Wall Street bank, a major fund manager, or the Fed chair. When a respected name issues a price target or a rate call, it can override your own technicals or risk management. You’ll see traders abandon their process because “so-and-so is never wrong.” The Milgram lesson? Appearances of authority are enough — legitimacy is optional. How This Plays Out in Trading Media The modern financial media machine applies this psychology with precision: Manufactured urgency: “BREAKING — Fed to announce…” Carefully seeded leaks: Trial balloons floated by “sources close to the matter.” Amplified groupthink: Coordinated talking points across outlets in the same news cycle. Selective silence: Under-reporting or ignoring data that contradicts the prevailing trade. These tactics aren’t random. They keep you reactive instead of strategic. The less time you spend verifying, the more likely you are to trade on emotion. Case Study: The 2020 Oil Crash In April 2020, crude oil futures went negative for the first time in history. The headlines were apocalyptic: “Oil Demand Has Collapsed Forever,” “The End of the Oil Age.” Social media amplified panic. Photos of grounded planes, empty freeways, and overflowing storage tanks made the trade feel untradeable on the long side. But the manipulation was in the framing: while the front-month contract collapsed due to storage issues, longer-dated contracts held value. Smart money used the hysteria to build positions in oil and energy equities at generational lows. By 2021, crude had tripled. The herd followed the headlines. The winners followed the tape. Case Study: The 2021 Meme Stock Frenzy In January 2021, GameStop (GME) and AMC became ground zero for “the little guy vs. Wall Street” narrative. The core psychological levers were all there: Fear (of missing the “short squeeze of the century”) Authority (influential accounts with millions of followers) Conformity (massive online communities reinforcing the trade 24/7) While early entrants made life-changing gains, most latecomers bought into engineered euphoria. By the time financial media was covering it nonstop, insiders and early whales were selling into the frenzy. Group psychology is a weapon… it has been hidden from the public and used against them. Why Traders Keep Falling for It Even seasoned traders underestimate how much narrative drives their behavior. The mistake is thinking manipulation is only for “the masses.” Wealth, status, and experience don’t reduce susceptibility to group psychology. In fact, exclusive circles — whether political councils or private trading groups — can amplify conformity because dissent risks social standing. It’s the same in trading chatrooms as in the Council on Foreign Relations: closed-door consensus shapes perception more powerfully than public debate. Building Your Defense The goal isn’t to unplug from all information — it’s to filter ruthlessly. Separate source from signal. Ask: Who benefits if I act on this? Use price action as the final arbiter. Narratives can be faked — the tape can’t. Delay reaction. Even a 15-minute pause can break the manipulation cycle. Track your triggers. Journal trades you took because of news or influencer calls — check the outcome versus trades taken purely on your system. Challenge the crowd. If everyone on your feed agrees, ask yourself what they’re all missing. Turning the Weapon Around It’s time for the people to pick up that weapon and use it to free themselves… Group psychology is a weapon, and like all weapons it is capable of being used for good or for evil. If you understand the levers — fear, authority, conformity — you can: Avoid being the last one into a crowded trade. Spot when media narratives diverge from price action (often the best setups). Use the herd’s behavior as a contrary indicator. The same mechanics that start wars or sell cigarettes can also keep you from chasing the top tick in oil futures or dumping a long position on a fake scare headline. The Bottom Line for Traders The market is a grand chessboard, and media manipulation is one of its oldest strategies. If you’re not aware of it, you’re playing as a pawn. Bernays, Lippmann, and their intellectual predecessors didn’t just describe propaganda — they built the operating system for every headline, analyst note, and viral “breaking news” tweet you see today. The edge isn’t in predicting the next manipulation. The edge is in recognizing it as it happens — and refusing to play the role it assigns you.

So someone in the US government is paying attention to history.





The US, somewhat late, realise that China is eating their lunch.

The answer is to forbid foreign nations to invest their surplus trade balances into the US stock markets. Rather, they will have to redirect those surpluses into infrastructure, factories, electrical power generation, etc.

Hence industrial securities are a good place to invest for the longer game.

The problem of course has a number of negative consequences.



Foreign investment into US markets = $28 Trillion +/-. That little blip was back in April when we had that selloff. If foreign capital leaves the US markets then either:

(i) markets take a real tumble; or
(ii) the Fed steps in to buy with new cash, those 'critical' stocks; and
(iii) The USD will need to be MUCH lower.


Now all week and for a few weeks in addition, POTUS has been hounding the Fed. to lower the FFR. Powell has resisted. He may even have criminal charges filed against him.

The standard way of doing things re. money creation (check out earlier chart above) is that the Fed in conjunction with the Treasury create money, high powered or other.

No longer:



Full:https://www.defense.gov/News/Releas...ces-first-loan-through-dod-agreement-with-mp/

The funding for OSC's $150 million loan to MP Materials comes from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025. The bill provides OSC with $500 million of credit subsidy funding, creating up to $100 billion in available loan funds specifically for critical minerals production and related industries and projects.


This is a real change.

In addition there were policy changes in:

Chip makers will remit a % of their revenues as tax.





Full:https://www.ft.com/content/cd1a0729-a8ab-41e1-a4d2-8907f4c01cac



The US government is thinking about:



Full:https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/14/tech/intel-trump-us-government-investment


Obviously once upon a time INTEL was the market leader in chips. This is a critical area for AI and the US needs to reclaim that leadership.


So other than industrial stocks, the other huge beneficiary from these inflationary policies will be gold. As previously stated, the US has been making noises about revaluing their gold. This is coming and coming much sooner than many expect. (See gold thread).





Higher VIX = lower stocks.

Anyone concerned in light of all of the above policy changes?

There still remains the 'passive bid'



Which is why employment is the CRITICAL measure for the stock market.

If you are thinking about employment, then you have to be thinking about AI. It is here and growing exponentially. I'd say pretty much no job is safe anymore.

And while on the topic of employment, falling employment increases US debt as unemployment benefits rise. Stock market falls, tax receipts fall significantly, debt rises.

Employment is the measure.

Which government agency got lambasted and their chief sacked?

Something to do with employment?


jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

• There is nothing more bullish than new all-time highs.
• The Dow just hit its first new all-time high of the year.
• It's still a bull market, and we're still buying stocks.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at a fresh 52-week high.

That's the first time that's happened in 2025, believe it or not.

Here's what the highest weekly close ever for the world's most important stock market index looks like:



A few things worth noting...

If the stock market is "extended," as I'm often told these days, then how come this is just the first new high of the year for the Dow?

Extended markets - those that have risen too far, too fast - historically make a lot of new highs on their way to "overextension," if you will.

Friday was just the first one.

And let's talk about those Fibonacci extension levels on the right side of the chart.

Feel free to ignore those if you'd like. But markets tend to respect these levels, and so we respect them as well.

Fifty thousand is the next target for the Dow - and I still believe that's where we're going.

The Nasdaq-100 already went.

The S&P 500 already went.

And now it's the Dow's turn.

"Don't fight Papa Dow" is how I learned it.

Not only am I not fighting it.

We're embracing it.

This Week in Everybody's Wrong​

On Monday, we learned that the total value of all the Cryptocurrency in the world hit $4 trillion for the first time ever.

Journalists are describing Bitcoin as a "time bomb," though.

Here's why I'll see you at Crypto $5 trillion.

On Tuesday, we talked about how and why early humans gathered and moved in herds.

That mentality is very much alive today.

We're all about breaking away from the pack - and we're looking for a small-cap ripper...

On Wednesday, we met the best fundamental analyst on Wall Street.

Usually we don't get too deep into the funnymentals.

Here's why we go with charts over humans any day of the week.

On Thursday, we revisited small-caps because everybody hates them.

We see a bunch of regional banks and biotechs...

And we're making some big bets.

On Friday, we discussed the fact that the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 hit new highs the same day the latest AAII survey data was released.

Somehow, there are still more bears among individual investors than there are bulls - by a lot - and it's been this way for a couple of weeks.

Can you believe a stock market making new all-time highs scares people this much?

On Saturday, Senior Analyst Jason Perz took us on an extraordinary journey into the world of BMX riding.

I'm as competitive as the next guy, and this is crazy, but there is a lot of valuable stuff in here about mental toughness.

Here's Jason on what he learned about trading the day he almost died.

Have a great Sunday.

We'll see you Monday morning...

Stay sharp,

Monday: After reporting a double beat, Gilead Sciences $GILD had its best earnings reaction in 12 quarters. The market is optimistic about its recently FDA-approved drug for HIV prevention. The advertising agency, Trade Desk $TTD, reported a double beat, but suffered its worst earnings reaction ever. The long-time CFO, Laura Schenkein, unexpectedly stepped down, sparking concerns over the future of the company.

Tuesday: There weren't any S&P 500 earnings reactions to cover, so we highlighted Franco-Nevada $FNV, which had its 3rd consecutive positive earnings reaction. They are benefiting in a significant way from higher precious metal prices. Their net income has increased 210% year-over-year, far outpacing the underlying commodities.

Wednesday: Cardinal Health $CAH posted mixed results, and got slammed for it. The -7.2% reaction snapped a streak of 5 consecutive positive earnings reports, and was the worst earnings reaction in 17 quarters. The primary reason for the selloff was due to management announcing the acquisition of Solaris Health for $2.4B. While this seems like a great long-term move, the market doesn't like the short-term hit to cash flows.

Thursday: There weren't any S&P 500 earnings reactions to cover, so we highlighted CoreWeave $CRWV and Webtoon Entertainment $WBTN. The reactions were opposites. CRWV reported mixed results, and the market punished shareholders with the most significant 1-day decline in the stock's short history. WBTN smashed Wall Street's expectations and surged over 80%, which was the stock's best day ever.

Friday: The networking hardware and software giant, Cisco Systems $CSCO posted better-than-expected headline results. However, the market was disappointed with the management team's forward guidance. Like CSCO, the manufacturer of heavy machinery, John Deere $DE reported better-than-expected headline results, but gave disappointing forward guidance. This resulted in the worst earnings reaction in 14 quarters.

What's happening next week

​

Retailers and Chinese stocks will be the most important earnings events next week. The reports we'll be monitoring closest are Walmart $WMT, Home Depot $HD, Baidu $BIDU, and Kingsoft Cloud $KC. Beyond those, we’ll also be watching: The wannabee Costco $COST, BJ's Wholesale Club $BJ One of the largest cybersecurity companies, Palo Alto Networks $PANW The struggling retailer, Target $TGT and many more. It's set to be another eventful week, so there will be plenty to cover in The Daily Beat. Now, let’s dig into the setups we'll be monitoring closest next week.

Here's the setup in WMT ahead of Thursday's earnings report

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Walmart is expected to post revenues of $175.89B and EPS of $0.73 in Thursday's earnings event. The stock recently found resistance at the peak from earlier this year, but the bigger picture is more bullish as the price has been grinding up the right-hand side of a multi-month accumulation pattern. If they sell the number, we expect the buyers to quickly step in as they continue to carve out this base. On the flip side, nothing would be more bullish than if the bulls gapped the stock to new all-time highs.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for WMT

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Fundamentally, Walmart is a steady engine. Revenue growth has lived mostly in the ~2–8% year-over-year lane, while diluted EPS growth has ranged from low-single digits to low-20s depending on mix and pricing. The reactions tell the story best... 2024 produced four straight green prints as execution and guidance beat cautious positioning. That momentum snapped earlier this year with a -6.5% hit, then the bears followed through in May. This week, the bears are trying to extend that new streak of negative earnings reactions to three.

Here's the setup in HD ahead of Tuesday's earnings report

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Home Depot is expected to report revenues of $45.42B and EPS of $4.72 in Tuesday's earnings event. The stock is carving out a textbook accumulation pattern, and this earnings reaction could be the catalyst to resolve it. Our line in the sand for HD is 420. Below there, it's still messy. But a close about that level would mark the beginning of a brand-new primary uptrend.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for HD

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Home Depot is more than just a retailer - it’s a proxy for the health of the U.S. housing and renovation cycle. Recently, stabilization in housing turnover has sparked optimism that demand for big-ticket DIY and contractor supplies could rebound. The market will be listening closely to the management team's commentary on the housing market. The company's EPS has been consistently declining for the past 3 years, but revenues started to rebound a year ago. The market will be watching closely to see if they can begin to drop that revenue growth to the bottom line. The earnings reactions for HD reinforce the sloppy technicals. One quarter, the market rewards them for reporting, then the next quarter, they hate it. Snip snap, snip snap. We want to see HD establish a new streak of positive earnings reactions before we can have any conviction in a breakout above 420.

Here's the setup in BIDU ahead of Wednesday's earnings report

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Baidu is expected to report revenues of $4.58B and EPS of $1.84 in Wednesday's earnings event. Heading into the report, price is sitting right at a shelf of former lows. It's a make-or-break level. The long-term trend is capped under heavy overhead supply, but near-term, everything hinges on 83. Hold it, and BIDU can rally back toward triple digits. Lose it, and the stock has big problems.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for BIDU

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Baidu is at the center of China’s search and AI ecosystem, but the bigger story is whether its cloud and AI bets can offset a slowing core ad business. After a long streak of top and bottom-line growth, the company started reporting negative growth a year ago. This also coincided with a new streak of consecutive negative earnings reactions, which is now up to 4 quarters. Despite the negative earnings reactions recently, we have noticed positive drift after each of these sell-offs. This tells us that the bears don't have complete control of the stock. Will this be the quarter that BIDU finally gets blasted below 83 and enters a new primary downtrend? We're about to find out!

Here's the setup in KC ahead of Wednesday's earnings report

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Kingsoft Cloud is another Chinese name that reports next week. It's one of the hottest Asian names in the market, having recently rallied from 2 to 22 in 5 months. They are expected to report revenues of $308M and EPS of $-0.13 in Wednesday's earnings event. After a sharp reversal earlier this year, KC has settled into a tight consolidation. Over the intermediate term, the path of least resistance is decisively higher, so long as it remains above the April 2023 peak. This earnings event could serve as the catalyst to resolve the short-term consolidation, sparking a fresh leg higher. On the flip side, if the bulls don't show up, the price will likely be stuck in the penalty box for another quarter.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for KC

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Kingsoft Cloud is a smaller player in China’s cloud infrastructure market, often viewed as a high-beta proxy for broader risk appetite toward Chinese tech. As you can see, this company has a long history of negative EPS prints, though revenue growth has stabilized more recently. The key is how the market has responded... KC has been rewarded in 2 of the last 3 earnings events, showing that investors are willing to give it credit for execution - even when fundamentals lag. With another report due Wednesday morning, the bulls are hoping to keep that momentum alive and extend the run of positive surprises.

So the US Treasury data is woeful:





So much for DOGE = failure.
Tariffs = failure


We are back to:



Issue more debt to pay off the old debt and service ever higher interest rates.


China:



Full:https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/china-deflation/


The thing is, the consensus have it wrong on China.


China runs a completely different strategy than we do in the West.

China have encouraged their people to buy gold for at least 25yrs and probably even longer as gold never went out of fashion in China, India, etc.

As prices of goods and services fall and their value of gold rises, the Chinese are fine.

Debts are state backed. Net-net = 0.

The really clever part: China runs capital controls. Yuan cannot leave China. Apart from a limited exchange through gold. China can purchase commodities in Yuan and settle in gold. They are a closed self-funding loop. Impervious to USD pressure.

So gold to oil:





Gold as against any commodity you care to mention, gold buys more of it today than before.



China has been planning this for a long time.

They can EASILY outlast the US.

As we have seen, the US can last about 7 days when the UST markets spasm. Pathetic.

The Chinese are buying more gold.





jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

Economists are considering a new inflation risk: geopolitical tensions that keep upward pressure on prices, especially on the energy front. The big picture: Despite messaging to the contrary over the weekend, a top White House official confirmed today that the administration will still impose heavy tariffs on India, a major buyer of Russian oil, second only to China. That comes as the administration considers whether to impose even more economic penalties on Russia as its war against Ukraine drags on — a move that could reverberate across the global economy. Driving the news: That uncertainty is part of the backdrop as European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrive in Washington, D.C., for talks about a path to end the war. The high-stakes Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage concluded without a ceasefire agreement or peace deal, an outcome that President Trump previously warned would bring severe consequences. Bloomberg reported last week that the Trump administration was considering the possibility of sanctions on Russia's largest oil producers, an action that officials hoped would be short-lived, given the possible impact on prices. But after the summit, Trump said he wouldn't think about the possibility of sanctions for "two or three weeks." Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday that additional sanctions might further delay peace talks. Yes, but: Top Trump adviser Peter Navarro said today that the White House would move to hit Russia indirectly with secondary tariffs targeting India. "India's dependence on Russian crude is opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world's efforts to isolate Putin's war economy," Navarro wrote in an op-ed published in the Financial Times. Navarro, an influential voice on trade and tariffs, said the Trump administration's plans to double tariffs on Indian goods to 50% — set to take effect next week — was a "two-pronged policy." It will "hit India where it hurts — its access to US markets — even as it seeks to cut off the financial lifeline it has extended to Russia's war effort," Navarro wrote in the op-ed. What they're saying: "The U.S. adviser's sharp words on India's Russian crude imports, paired with postponed trade talks, revive concerns that energy flows remain hostage to trade and diplomatic frictions," Priyanka Sachdeva, an analyst at Singapore-based firm Phillip Nova, told CNBC. Between the lines: Energy prices have been stable since Trump took office, offsetting some of the tariff-related price hikes. Crude prices are below the recent peak in June after tensions flared between the U.S. and Iran. Energy prices are down 1.6% from a year ago, while gasoline prices are 9.5% lower, according to the July Consumer Price Index. Global oil demand has been tepid; any knock to supply might not be particularly meaningful. The Department of Energy's independent statistics agency expects lower oil prices next year. Flashback: The opposite dynamic prevailed during the Biden era. Energy prices soared as Russia invaded Ukraine and officials took steps to cut off the world's supply of Russian oil. The move was seen as necessary from a geopolitical standpoint. Economically, it ignited inflation that was already on the upswing. The bottom line: Few expect a repeat. But geopolitical tensions add a new dimension to America's tariff-fueled inflation risks.

We’ve now crossed the 90% mark of S&P 500 companies reporting this season - and what a season it has been. We have seen a steady drumbeat of upside surprises, with S&P 500 earnings estimates climbing to fresh all-time highs. That’s not bearish... Strong markets need strong fundamentals - and right now, the backdrop is delivering. But let’s not get complacent... Not every report has been a victory lap. Friday’s release from Applied Materials $AMAT was one of the ugliest market misses this season - a sharp reminder that even in the healthiest environments, landmines still lurk beneath the surface. That's precisely why we're working so closely with Herb Greenberg - to identify the weak links in the market.

Here are the latest earnings stats for AMAT

​

*Click the image to enlarge it The only earnings reaction on Friday came from the $130B leader in Semiconductor Equipment & Materials, Applied Materials. The stock had a -5.73 reaction score after reporting a double beat. They posted revenues of $7.30B, versus the expected $7.22B, and earnings per share of $2.48, versus the expected $2.36. While the headline numbers seemed fine, the market was disgusted by this report.

AMAT had its worst earnings reaction this century

​

As you can see, Applied Materials has been consistently punished for reporting earnings for years. However, this quarter's reaction was different... The selling pressure was more intense than we've seen in decades. As one of the most important companies in the semiconductor supply chain, this doesn't bode well for the semiconductor bulls. Now, let's dive into what sparked this selloff.

AMAT had its 6th consecutive negative earnings reaction

​

Applied Materials crashed 14.1% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

They reported an all-time high revenue number, growing 8% year-over-year. However, the management team openly stated that this isn't sustainable... They expect a 29% decline in Chinese revenue due to saturation in that customer base. In addition, they are one of the most vulnerable companies to tariffs and export controls.

This was an absolute disaster of an earnings reaction from one of the most important companies in the semiconductor supply chain. While players like Nvidia $NVDA and Broadcom $AVGO are much less exposed to the same headwinds, this is still a major red flag for semiconductor bulls. The stock looked good ahead of this report as the price was holding above the VWAP anchored to the all-time high. However, the bears blasted the price right through that level. Now, it looks like a retest of the April low is inevitable. So long as AMAT holds below 175, the path of least resistance is decisively lower for the foreseeable future.

jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

Job growth slowed down substantially this summer. What we don't know for sure is why. That "why" is crucial for policymakers who must decide what to do next. The big picture: If the jobs slowdown is due to less labor supply, thanks in part to restrictionist immigration policy, then it's nothing to worry about. If it is because employers are more reluctant to hire, then it's an early warning that the economy needs monetary stimulus. In other words, we could be in the early stages of a labor market downturn, which could justify the kinds of aggressive interest rate cutting the Trump administration seeks. Or we could just be seeing the inverse of the situation faced in 2023 and the first half of 2024, when high immigration rates unduly flattered the payrolls numbers, masking a deterioration in the health of the labor market. That would imply no rate cutting is needed. State of play: Reliable numbers on immigration flows are hard to come by in real time, particularly for migrants with ambiguous legal status. If a large number of immigrants are being deported, self-deporting, or staying away from their workplaces for fear of immigration raids, it would translate into fewer workers on employers' payrolls. That, combined with the extra-large baby boom generation hitting retirement age, is exerting a downward drag on the rates of job creation consistent with a healthy job market. Between the lines: Normally, the 35,000 average monthly job growth from May through July would be a four-alarm labor market fire. To the degree it's driven by those mechanical effects of immigration and demographics, it's not worthy of a policy response. The intrigue: The inverse situation in the Biden administration shows the policy predicament. From April 2023 to July 2024, the unemployment rate rose a whopping 0.8 percentage point — one of many signs the labor market softened significantly. But the economy added an average of 177,000 jobs a month in that same span. At first glance, the combination of a rising unemployment rate and strong jobs growth simply does not compute. It is explained by a surge of immigrants seeking refugee and other statuses. What they're saying: "We learned in '23 and '24 that if there are big immigration changes going, aggregate numbers like total GDP growth and total job creation can be very misleading short-run indicators of where we are in the business cycle," Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee told reporters last week. "I want us to not over-index on monthly payroll employment when we're in an environment where we don't know what the breakeven is because we don't know what the immigration flows are." Of note: The official topic of this year's Jackson Hole Symposium, which starts Thursday, is "Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy." So these questions of how immigration policy and demographic changes are affecting labor market indicators are likely to be front and center, even though the topic was set long ago.

U.S. homebuilders started construction on new homes at the quickest pace in five months in July, though permits for future projects were the weakest since 2020. Why it matters: The rise in activity might not ease fears that the housing recession, underway for years, could get worse in the months ahead. By the numbers: New construction was stronger than expected last month, despite downbeat sentiment among homebuilders. New residential construction rose more than 5% in July to an annualized rate of 1.4 million homes, the government said today. Multifamily housing starts led the gain, with a 10% gain in one month alone. Single-family homes, which make up the lion's share of construction, rose roughly 2%. Yes, but: Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics said the surge of building was "noise rather than a sign that new residential construction is turning a corner." Monthly housing starts data can be volatile, with wide margins of error. The intrigue: Construction firms signaled weak plans for building in the future. Building permits, a leading indicator of future construction activity, fell almost 3% in July to an annualized rate of 1.35 million. That is roughly 6% below the pace seen in the same period a year ago. What to watch: The housing sector has slumped in recent years as high interest rates keep buyers on the sidelines. That has made builders more cautious about breaking ground on new projects that might not attract buyers. It has also hurt sales in the existing home market. Now there are two other factors weighing on housing: rising materials costs due to tariffs, and a crackdown on immigration that is shrinking the sector's labor pool. The bottom line: The housing sector is expected to continue to weigh on broader economic growth. "Housing has been in recession since the Fed started raising rates in 2022 and we have not yet seen any green shoots," Jeffrey Roach, LPL Financial chief economist, wrote in a note. "We expect residential investment will drag on GDP growth but that should reverse in Q1 2026," Roach added.

According to media reports, Chinese refineries have purchased at least 15 cargoes for October and November delivery as India’s state-owned refineries limit their imports of Russian crude amidst rising geopolitical tensions.

- Russia’s medium sour Urals grade, accounting for more than half of its oil exports, tends to flow mostly to India because of shorter logistics from the Black Sea and Baltic Sea ports of the country.

- Chinese refiners have imported only two cargoes of Urals in June, only one in July; however, as India’s demand started to wane, they’ve scooped up at least 10 tankers for October, quadrupling their intake compared to the 2025 average of 40,000 b/d.

- Soaring Chinese imports of Russian oil are also a reaction to higher Middle Eastern prices, after Saudi Aramco hiked its September-loading formula prices to a $3.20 per barrel premium over Oman/Dubai.


Market Movers

- UK-based energy major Shell (LON:SHEL) has transferred its stakes in four contiguous blocks in the central part of the Gulf of Mexico to BP (NYSE:BP), indicating that the high-impact Penguin prospect might’ve turned out to be dry.

- Algeria’s state oil company Sonatrach has struck oil in Libya, confirming prospective resources in the onshore Block 065 it operates, just south of the Wafa field that produces 40,000 b/d of crude.

- US utility company Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) agreed to purchase its industry peer NorthWestern Energy for $3.6 billion in an all-stock deal, marking another important step in America’s power M&A landscape.

- Italy’s energy major ENI (BIT:ENI) agreed to sell a 49.99% stake in its carbon capture and storage projects to BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) subsidiary GIP, mostly covering upstream assets in the North Sea.


Tuesday, August 19, 2025

The Trump-Putin and subsequent Trump-Zelenskiy meetings provided ample talking points for the markets at large; however, the lack of sanctioning threats has been mostly a bearish factor for crude prices. The price drops of late have been relatively tiny, with ICE Brent still trading around $66 per barrel, yet the upside from here seems to be minimal, barring a sudden escalation.

US Keeps Pressure on India’s Russian Imports. Writing an op-ed in the Financial Times, Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro said India’s purchases of Russian oil were funding Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, just as a planned visit from US trade negotiators to New Delhi next week was called off.

China Floods the Market with Products. Chinese exports of refined products rose to a 13-month high of 5.34 million tonnes last month, marking a 7% increase year-on-year, driven primarily by diesel flows as Europe continued to buy long-haul volumes, whilst domestic demand in China wanes.

Iran Halts Power Exports to Iraq. Iran halted electricity exports to neighbouring Iraq, citing a surge in domestic consumption as the country’s power demand jumped to 77 GW, whilst Tehran had to ratchet up its own power imports from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to prevent blackouts.

China’s LNG Import Slide Continues. With China’s LNG imports trending 20% compared to 2024 readings, July arrivals to the world’s once-largest LNG importer totalledonly 35.51 million tonnes LNG, marking the ninth straight month of annual declines as JKM prices remain above $11/MMbtu.

Indonesia Eyes Modular Refinery Bonanza. Indonesia’s government plans to build at least 17 modular refineries across the country, with the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, keen to sign an $8 billion deal with US engineering firm KBR (NYSE:KBR) despite profitability concerns.

Norway’s LNG Troubles Continue. The Hammerfest LNG terminal in Norway’s Arctic was forced to shut its production of LNG this weekend due to an overheating electric transformer, less than two weeks after operator Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) restarted operations after a three-month maintenance.

Brazil’s Regulator Halts Output at Key FPSO. Brazil’s largest independent oil producer Prio (BVMFRIO3) admitted that the country’s local regulator had ordered a full production halt at its 100,000 b/d Peregrino FPSO, citing the need for improvements in risk management documentation.

Glencore Doubles Down on Argentinian Copper. Global mining giant Glencore (LON:GLEN) has submitted applications to Argentina’s authorities for RIGI tax incentives, vowing to develop the $4 billion Agua Rica and $9.5 billion El Pachon copper mines in the country, creating 2,500 new jobs.

Ukraine Strikes Halt Russian Pipeline. Ukraine’s military confirmed that its drones struck an oil pumping station in Russia’s Tambov region feeding the Druzhba pipeline that supplies some 210,000 b/d of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, halting pipeline transportation in the conduit completely.

ADNOC’s Purchase of Santos Delayed Again. Australia’s upstream giant Santos (ASX:STO) announced that the ADNOC-led consortium, comprising Abu Dhabi’s holding company ADQ and PE firm Carlyle, will not be able to finalize its $18.7 billion bid for the producer for at least a month.

Trump Promises to Slap Tariffs on Semiconductors. US President Donald Trump vowed to introduce tariffs on imports of steel and semiconductor chips over the coming weeks, adding that rates would be lower at the start to allow companies to relocate their manufacturing to the United States.

US Miner Calls Off Giant Coking Coal Deal. US mining firm Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU) terminated its planned purchase of Anglo American’s Australian coking coal assets, failing to adjust the $3.8 billion purchase price after a fire at the Moranbah North mine, paving the way for arbitration.

Russia’s Dormant LNG Giant Awakens. Four LNG carriers linked to Novatek’s (MCX:NVTK) 19.8 mtpa Arctic LNG 2 project are headed towards Asia along the Northern Sea Route, putting an end to months of little activity as both the ships and the project remain under stringent US sanctions.

There weren't any S&P 500 earnings reactions on Monday, but an up-and-coming Bitcoin mining stock had a reaction that caught our attention. Bitdeer Technologies $BTDR, a $2.5B Singapore-based firm, is making a name for itself as a hybrid play on both crypto mining and the broader data center business. The company started as a pure mining operation - building out facilities that run fleets of high-performance rigs to secure the Bitcoin network and earn block rewards. But in recent quarters, management has been pushing aggressively into infrastructure services, pitching themselves as a future provider of computing capacity that could support AI and cloud workloads alongside crypto. That strategic shift is key for the bull case here. Mining revenues are notoriously cyclical and tied to the price of BTC. But a recurring services model built on high-density, energy-efficient data centers could give them a steadier, more durable growth profile. The market is loving the story of mining cash flows funding a data center expansion. And with Bitcoin still hovering near all-time highs, the timing lines up well for reinvestment.

BTDR is at a key level of interest

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On Monday, Bitdeer posted mixed headline results, but the stock ripped +7.2% in response. This marked the best post-earnings reaction since it went public in 2023. That’s not a long history, but it’s a sign that the market is warming up to their new story. From a technical perspective, the setup doesn’t get much cleaner. The stock is pressing against a shelf of former highs that dates back to the post-IPO pump. If buyers can finally clear this level, it opens the door to a retest of the all-time high set earlier this year. Our line in the sand for BTDR is 14.50. A close above that level would be the market's green light signal. On the flip side, the price action is likely to be messy below that level.

Japan is probably the country I’m most excited to visit right now. Everyone keeps telling me I have to go — the food, the history, the culture. Everything about it feels completely different from what I’m used to, in the best way. But when it comes to markets, the story is even bigger. Japan’s Nikkei 225 is finally breaking out to new all-time highs. It took 35 years for Japan to exceed those 1989 highs.

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That’s three decades of no progress. Think about that. Entire market cycles have come and gone since the Nikkei last stood here. Back then, the internet didn’t even exist. Michael Jordan hadn’t won his first NBA championship. People were still listening to cassette tapes. That’s how far back we’re going. But here we are — 2025, and the Nikkei is breaking out of a monster base. This is what I call a generational breakout in Japanese stocks. A moment like this doesn’t come around often. For investors watching global markets, it’s a strong signal that the long-term backdrop remains as solid as ever. Don’t sleep on Japan—this breakout is real, and the opportunities are only getting started

• We're concerned with behavior, not opinion.
• What's happening right now gives life to bull markets.
• Price speaks louder than headlines.

The American consumer isn't just a piece of the U.S. economy - they are the engine driving it.

Nearly 70% of gross domestic product (GDP) comes directly from household spending. The everyday choices people make - what they buy, where they travel, how they splurge - accounts for the majority of economic output.

Now, I'm no economist (thank goodness), and I don't spend my days buried in fundamental spreadsheets. But even I can agree that tracking consumer behavior is critical if you want to understand the bigger picture.

That's why it grabs my attention when the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary ETF (RSPD) rips to new all-time highs:



This isn't just Amazon.com (AMZN) flexing its size or Tesla (TSLA) dominating the scoreboard - every stock in the group gets the same vote.

From DoorDash (DASH) to Las Vegas Sands (LVS), they all carry equal weight in this index, regardless of market capitalization.

Where Are the Leaders?​

With the equal-weight version of the Consumer Discretionary index already hitting new all-time highs, where's the market-cap version?

What's holding back the bellwethers - AMZN, TSLA, Home Depot (HD), McDonald's (MCD)?

Here's the chart of the market-cap weighted Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLY) in blue, overlaid with the equal-weight version that's already hitting all-time highs:



For me, if these lines are going up, the market isn't falling apart.

It's quite the opposite, actually. These are the types of stocks that should be doing well in a healthy market environment.

These are Retailers, Homebuilders, Automakers, and Leisure stocks.

Sector Rotation​

The way I learned it is that sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market.

During the first half of 2025, Consumer Discretionary was flat, with zero return. This was on an equal-weight basis.

From a market-cap weighted perspective, Consumer Discretionary was actually down during the first half of the year, losing 2.66% of value. It was the worst-performing sector in the market.

Take a look at price action for the current quarter:



Consumer Discretionary is the best-performing sector in the U.S. on both a market-cap-weighted AND an equal-weight basis.

That's a 7.5% return so far this quarter.

This is exactly what I mean by "sector rotation": Every group gets its moment in the spotlight.

They say the consumer is tapped out, stretched thin, and can't afford to spend.

But the market is telling a very different story.

And, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that price always speaks louder than the headlines.

Stay sharp,

• Semiconductor stocks are the most important group in the market.
• The Big Three are big, but there's a lot more to the story.
• These are the key levels to watch...

You can't have any technology without chips.

That's why Semiconductors are considered some of the most important stocks in the market.

Right now, this critical group is trying to do something it hasn't been able to do.

That is, break out to new all-time highs on an equally weighted basis.

Semis Are Top-Heavy​

Semiconductors are one of those groups where the winners win and the best players score almost all of the points.

For perspective, when you add up all the Semiconductor stocks in the world, they're valued at about $8.6 trillion.

Nvidia (NVDA), the world's largest chip maker, is half of that, with a current market capitalization of $4.3 trillion.

The second- and third-largest chip makers, Broadcom (AVGO) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), are worth $1.4 trillion and $1.2 trillion, respectively.

So the stock market's version of the "Big Three" (for you pro basketball fans out there) is Nvidia, Broadcom and Taiwan Semi, with a combined market cap of more than $7 trillion.

That's more than 80% of the entire value of all the chipmakers in the world.

When I look at the equally weighted Semiconductor index making new all-time highs, that's a total different look at the group altogether.



The SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) treats each of the Big Three stocks - NNDA, AVGO, and TSM - the same way it treats Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Credo Technology (CRDO).

In this index - the one that just closed at a new all-time high - all of these stocks get treated equally.

It's a Market-Cap Weighted World​

The best players are supposed to score a lot of your points. That's how I learned it.

There's nothing wrong with that.

In Semiconductor land, it's to an obnoxious degree, I think we can all admit.

Three companies alone represent more than eight-tenths of the global market.

The market-cap weighted VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) has the Big Three at about 40% of its total assets under management.

It's still top-heavy, for sure, as it should be. That's just the world we live in.

Here's SMH hitting new all-time highs last week:



This sets the stage for either a new leg higher or a massive failed breakout.

Based on current behavior, we can draw a line near those former all-time highs last year and see if they can hold those levels.

To quote the great Walter Sobchak, "Over the Line!"

But if Semis manage to fail here, they can enter the proverbial "world of pain" Walter so passionately threatened.

In other words, if the SMH fails to hold these levels, that could pose a serious problem for Semis as a group.

So, all eyes on those levels. Otherwise...

"Mark it zero, Smokey!"

The Dude Abides​

An equally weighted Semiconductor index trying to break out again after failing a couple of times over the past year is a big one.

I mean, if both versions are making new highs, that indicates much broader strength for what is arguably the most important group of stocks in the market.

It's not just the Big Three.

If the S&P Semiconductor Index is working, that's a positive sign for the broader space.

Right now, the XSD has its highest short interest in more than four years.

You'll be shocked to hear I think they're all wrong.

I guess we'll see...

Stay sharp,


jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

• Rotation is a sign of market health.
• A key ratio just hit multi-decade lows.
• This is the level we're watching...

Rotation is the heartbeat of every bull market. Not just some of them - all of them.

Yesterday, we talked about Consumer Discretionary and how it went from laggard in the first half to leader in the third quarter.

But that's just one rotation in play - the story goes much deeper.

Broadening Market Strength​

I pay close attention to both what people say and what they actually do.

As technicians, our job isn't just to analyze the market - it's to study the human behavior driving those price moves.

Every tick on the screen is a reflection of fear, greed, positioning, and psychology.

And here's what I've noticed: The loudest voices calling for a market top, insisting this rally is "unsustainable," aren't the ones doing the work.

They're rooting for a decline, often for reasons that have nothing to do with the data.

Maybe it's politics - they don't like President Trump, and they want the narrative to match their bias.

Maybe it's envy - they missed the run, and they need the market to fall so they don't feel left out.

But the truth is, they're ignoring the rotation happening beneath the surface.

Strength is broadening out across sectors, and you can see it clearly in the S&P 500 Equal-Weight Index:



SP500EW continues to look strong and poised for a breakout to new all-time highs.

It's built differently than the traditional S&P 500 most people follow. Here, every stock gets an equal vote in the outcome, no matter how big or small it is.

By contrast, the traditional S&P 500 gives outsized influence to the giants - Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN) - while the smaller names barely move the needle.

Market-Cap vs Equal-Weight​

Comparing these two indexes isn't about measuring market breadth.

This is a sector rotation story.

Consider the weightings.

Technology makes up about 35% of the market-cap weighted S&P 500. In the equal-weight version, Tech shrinks to just 16%, less than half the influence.

Industrials tell the opposite story. In the market-cap index, they're a modest 7%. In the equal-weight S&P 500, it's 14% - double the exposure.

The equal-weight index also tilts heavier toward Materials, Energy, Real Estate, and Utilities.

The real tug-of-war comes down to Tech stocks vs the others. When Tech is leading, the market-cap-weighted S&P 500 shines.

When leadership rotates, when other sectors step up, the equal-weight S&P 500 takes the crown.

Here's what the ratio between the equal-weight index and the market-cap-weighted version looks like over time:



When the blue line rises, the equal-weight S&P 500 is in charge. When it falls, the market-cap version takes the lead. And right now, this ratio has dropped to new multi-decade lows.

If it can reclaim the 1.2 level and get back above every former low since 2008, that would signal a meaningful rotation away from Tech leadership and into the rest of the market.

That's the level we're watching.

Stay sharp,

Earnings season is the heartbeat of the market - and every day brings fresh signals about where money is flowing. With each report, we learn not just how companies are performing, but how investors are reacting. In the Daily Beat, we spotlight the most important earnings moves from the prior session - the winners, the losers, and the reactions that reveal what really matters to the market right now. Whether it’s a bellwether with broad economic implications or a niche name making waves, we cut through the noise to focus on the setups that matter most.

Here are the latest earnings stats from the S&P 500

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*Click the image to enlarge it The $405B home improvement retail giant, Home Depot, had a +3.38 reaction score after reporting a double miss. They reported revenues of $45.28B, versus the expected $45.42B, and earnings per share of $4.68, versus the expected $4.72. The $115B medical devices company, Medtronic, had a -2.38 reaction score after reporting a double beat. They reported revenues of $8.58B, versus the expected $8.38B, and earnings per share of $1.26, versus the expected $1.23. Now let's dive into the data and talk about the most important beats

HD was rewarded for missing headline expectations

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Home Depot rallied 3.2% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenues grew 4.9% year-over-year, while EPS was roughly flat over the same timeframe. 12 of 16 merchandising departments posted positive comps, with notable strength in storage, bath, hardware, building materials, and appliances. The biggest reason for yesterday's rally was guidance. Management reaffirmed its 2025 guidance, despite many Wall Street analysts expecting worse because of the tariff situation.

In Sunday's column of the Weekly Beat, we noted that Home Depot snapped a streak of 5 consecutive quarters of negative revenue growth a year ago. Since then, they have grown their top-line anywhere from 0.6% to 14.1% in 4 consecutive quarters. Despite this, there has been negative EPS growth in 8 of the last 9 earnings reports. This quarterly report revealed that the trend of growing revenue, but not EPS, is still alive and well. Technically speaking, the stock has been carving out a textbook accumulation pattern for nearly 4 years. We believe this company must show the market bottom-line growth before shareholders can expect a new primary uptrend. Nonetheless, it was encouraging for the bulls to see the stock rally despite the headline misses. After all, this is one of the most important proxies for the health of the U.S. housing market. So long as HD is below 420, we expect the path of least resistance to remain sideways for the foreseeable future.

MDT had its 4th consecutive negative earnings reaction

​

Medtronic fell 3.1% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

This was the 11th consecutive quarter of mid-single-digit organic revenue growth. The management team announced that the legendary activist investment shop Elliott Investment Management has built a substantial stake in the company. In addition to the quarterly results, they raised their full-year EPS guidance.

We continue to be amazed by the market's unwillingness to reward this stock for reporting good news. Tuesday's reaction marked the 4th consecutive negative earnings reaction, which is one of the largest in the S&P 500. Despite this, the setup is undeniable. Price has carved out one of the most textbook bearish-to-bullish reversal patterns in the market, and we think it's only a matter of time before the bulls take control of the trend. Seeing an activist investor of Elliott Investment Management's caliber is potentially a significant bullish tailwind for the stock. They have been tremendously successful in numerous campaigns. Will this be another one for the win column? Only time will tell... Until MDT decisively breaks above 95, we expect the path of least resistance to remain sideways for the foreseeable future.

The Trump administration is pursuing wholesale change at the Federal Reserve with a ruthlessness and creativity that few Fed watchers could have imagined.

Why it matters: The president's demands for lower interest rates are not just rhetoric, and his attacks aren't limited to insults of chair Jerome Powell.

• Rather, the administration is pursuing a sophisticated, multifront war to try to install loyalists atop the Fed much faster than normal turnover would allow.

The big picture: This morning, the top housing finance regulator posted a criminal referral accusing Cook of mortgage fraud. She allegedly has mortgages on two separate homes, each of which she claims is her primary residence.

• We saw the first glimpses of the strategy last month, with claims that Powell lied to Congress and/or violated the law through changes and cost overruns on the Fed's $2.5 billion renovation project.
• Politico reported yesterday that President Trump is seeking a lightning-fast Senate confirmation for top White House economist Stephen Miran as a Fed governor — in time for him to push for rate cuts at a policy meeting less than a month away.

Between the lines: Trump and his allies are trying to establish the predicate to fire Fed governors for cause so that they can put in place leadership who will deliver the looser monetary policy Trump demands — and act with less independence from the president's desires going forward.

• In the meantime, they are looking to make life as unpleasant as possible for Powell, Cook, and other Biden-appointed Fed leaders.

Driving the news: Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, posted on X a letter to the attorney general stating that it appears Cook "has falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statutes."

• She took out a mortgage on a Michigan house represented to be her principal residence, and shortly thereafter a loan on an Atlanta condominium that was also described as her principal residence, according to Pulte's letter.
• There is no accusation or evidence that Cook has defaulted on either loan. Pulte has used the same tactic to pursue prominent Trump antagonists, namely California Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both Democrats.
• President Trump posted on Truth Social this morning that "Cook must resign, now!!!" The Wall Street Journal reported that he is considering firing Cook for cause, citing two unnamed sources.

Zoom out: If the new allegations result in Cook resigning or being successfully fired for cause, Trump would move close to his appointees having operating control of the Fed's powerful Board of Governors.

• Miran, once confirmed, will join Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller as Trump appointees on the seven-person board. With another vacancy, Trump appointees would attain a 4-3 majority.
• That would give Trump appointees power over the Fed system's budgets, staffing, and selection of reserve bank presidents.

Zoom in: Cook's term is not scheduled to expire until 2038, so her successful early removal would advance that goal far ahead of what the calendar would allow.

Of note: The 12 presidents of reserve banks serve five-year terms that are all scheduled to expire at the end of February. The Board of Governors must vote to approve their reappointment.

• In other words, a majority of the Board of Governors could, if it wishes, oust some or all of the bank presidents just a few months from now.

Economists are casting fresh doubt on data that showed a rebound in new construction last month. Why it matters: The housing market might be on shakier footing than official indicators suggest. Driving the news: Homebuilders broke ground on new construction at the fastest pace since February last month, the government said yesterday. Taken alone, it might have offered hope that the housing market was emerging from its yearslong slump. But elsewhere in the report, building permits — which foreshadow new construction — fell to the lowest level since 2020, the latest in a string of declines this year. The big picture: Housing starts rose roughly 5% from a month earlier, but the margin of error is notoriously large: The actual number might be anywhere between a drop of 9% and a gain of 20%. "I know the topic of [government] data is sensitive these days, but if we take the noise out and just look at these start numbers objectively, they don't add up," Jay Parsons, a housing economist, wrote on X. Between the lines: Construction has been held down by high interest rates that are both boosting financing costs for builders and keeping a lid on demand for buyers. "I think we're referring to it as a bit of a 'frozen housing market,' with 40-plus-year-low turnover rates, and even new [housing] starts are straddling a bit," Home Depot CEO Ed Decker said on the company's earnings call yesterday. He added that lower interest rates "would certainly help," but it was difficult to pick the level that "unlocks turnover and mobility in U.S. housing and in new construction." The other side: Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison told investors this morning that there was "a healthy pipeline" on home renovation projects and home construction, in part because of pent-up demand from delayed projects. The bottom line: There are new questions about the health of the housing market and the data that is used to gauge it.

Did you know that more stocks were up today than down? I’m not saying the price action was good, but it was probably better than most think. And that’s because the indexes are so concentrated that a small handful of stocks drive the action and mask what’s happening beneath the surface. Which brings me to another point: how you do on days like today is all about what you own. In other words, does your portfolio look a lot like the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100, dominated by big tech stocks? I think this is the case for most investors, as they’ve had success hanging out in large-cap leaders or trusted passive vehicles cycle after cycle. Those growth investors had a rough day today. But then we have the dividend investors and value folks, and their portfolios can look quite different. Financials and industrials performed well today. They were both green. And how about the rally in Real Estate? Investors who are overweight these groups barely felt today’s sell-off. So, how you perform during a corrective wave for the broader market is going to be a function of how much your portfolio looks like it… If the S&P 500 is correcting or moving lower, as it was today, other areas of the market could still do fine… and so could you. I think the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a great barometer for everything that isn’t growth in the large-cap world. Amazingly, the index looks more like small-caps than large-caps at times, but it’s really just a value vs growth story when compared to the S&P or NDX. Here’s the Dow vs S&P ratio showing almost 20 years of steady underperformance from the value-heavy index as growth has dominated in recent history:

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But there’s never been a more logical time and place for this relative trend to stop and reverse. The DJI/SPX ratio is rebounding off a shelf of support at its record lows as downside momentum wanes. Could you imagine a world where the Dow is actually the better place to be—and investors are rewarded for having a portfolio with more value than growth for a change? As hard as it is to believe at this point, this was commonly the case back during the 80s, 90s, and even 2000s. So I don’t think it would be a bearish signal for the broader market or anything like that. That’s not the right takeaway for a ratio like this. Just recently, in 2016 and 2017, the Dow led during a historic bull market period. It could happen again. The real information in this ratio is about what stocks to own. Should I keep leaning into growth? Or is it finally time to own more value? If we’re in for more days like today in the future, we’re all going to want to own more value. Despite the big sell-off for growth stocks, the Dow made a new all-time high intraday and managed to close positive. Here it is threatening to break out of a consolidation that dates back to last year:

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If the Dow is going to start outperforming the S&P and that ratio is going to dig in at multi-decade support, I suspect DJI is sticking this breakout on an absolute basis. And if those two things are happening, I think it would be prudent to plan for more and more days like today…. And to buy some value stocks to make the most of it. Wouldn’t it just make sense for banks and cyclical stocks to take the leadership reins during an AI-fueled bull market? It wouldn’t. But it doesn’t have to. I’m staying open-minded. A big breakout in the Dow here could signal a regime shift in the relative trend that favors value.

As the world’s central bankers gather in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for their annual dose of fresh air in the shadow of the Tetons, they can sense the plates beneath them are beginning to shift. This will definitely be Jerome Powell’s last symposium as chairman of the Federal Reserve, his Last Stand in the Wild West. The drama surrounding his replacement threatens to become all-consuming. Profound changes for the Fed, to be imposed by others, are on the agenda.

But it’s also an opportunity for a profound change in the direction that the Fed decided on for itself five years ago, in what now appears to be a spectacularly ill-timed intervention. It was at Jackson Hole in 2020 that Powell unveiled Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (FAIT), which would aim to keep inflation to an average of 2%, rather than treat 2% as an upper limit. Points of Return ridiculed this at the time. The Fed’s fear then was of Japanification, and an approach that allowed the economy to run a little hot from time to time seemed better. It seemed like wishful thinking — the economy had been sluggish for decades, and such a move seemed like pressing on the accelerator of a feeble car whose engine wasn’t powerful enough to break the speed limit.

As it turned out, within months Japanification would seem the least of the Fed’s worries. Inflation has averaged far more than 2% over the last five years, Powell and his colleagues have taken the blame for a big mistake, and the central bank’s credibility needs to be regained.

There is apparently no chance that the 2% target will be abandoned, even though the political pressure to cut rates would imply that the Trump administration feels happy to live with prices rising at a somewhat faster clip. Powell’s swan song at Jackson Hole could end on a sour note — or perhaps as a defiant last stand in the same state (then a territory) where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer met his end in 1876.


If he does hold firm against the pressure on him to cut rates, that could create as much excitement as a typical Western. Rates markets, as monitored by the Bloomberg World Interest Rate Probabilities function, have moved to discount a far more drastic easing over the last six months, a period in which inflation has started to rise again:


This sets markets up for a hawkish surprise. The near-term speculation looks particularly overdone. The futures market suggests that the odds of a 25-basis-point cut next month are about 85%. But there are a lot of wagers on a “jumbo” cut of 50 basis points. My colleague Edward Bolingbroke points out that open interest in secured overnight financing rate optionsthat would deliver a big profit if the Fed made a jumbo cut of more than 25 basis points have exploded in the last two weeks.


Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued last week that the Fed should consider a jumbo cut, and also that rates should be at least 150 basis points lower. The market currently is behaving as though he’s likely to get what he wants.

The main reason for that comes from the politics of the Fed. Two governors, both of whom have been told they’re candidates for the chair, voted to cut last month. Several more members of the Federal Open Market Committee are also now under consideration — and know that they’ll need to do the same if they want the job. For now, the race to replace Powell remains wide open, probably because the administration has calculated that this maximizes its chances of getting cuts even while he remains in place. As far as Polymarket is concerned, the marginal favorite is current governor Chris Waller, but there’s still a one-in-three chance that no nomination is made this year:


The enthusiastic rate-cut bets rest primarily on the theory that the way President Donald Trump and his officials are running the Fed contest will persuade the committee to vote that way.

Inflation, which is rising and above target, offers no reason whatever to cut rates. The case for easing rests exclusively on employment, the other side of the Fed’s mandate. Handily, this year’s Jackson Hole symposium is entitled Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy. It will be wrestling with the critical topic of the moment.

Evidence from the labor market is contradictory and, of course, marred by unreliable data. Payroll growth is still positive but slowing. Other data paint a confusing picture. According to the New York Fed's quarterly labor market survey, the “reservation wage” — which workers will expect before being prepared to move — has just leapt to an all-time high. That suggests that there’s still plenty of potentially inflationary heat:


The New York Fed also tracks mobility by asking what has happened to those who were in work three months earlier. The number who have moved on, for whatever reason, has rebounded to a post-pandemic high:


When the jobs market churns this much, it’s harder to see the macroeconomic signals. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Fed’s wage tracker, based on census data, shows wage rises falling but still at levels for the highly skilled that weren’t seen for more than a decade after the Global Financial Crisis. Inequality, which became acute during the Obama presidency as wages for low-skilled workers languished, appears to be returning. That’s not great for a White House dedicated to reversing inequality. It also implies that falling immigration hasn’t yet pushed up wages for the low-skilled:


This may be a matter of time. Reliable data on illegal migrant labor is hard to come by, but Banco de Mexico’s data show that remittances to the country are now declining, after rising for the better part of a decade (including Trump’s first term). That suggests the supply of migrant labor in the US is tighter, which might imply higher wage inflation for the low-skilled:


Turning to the consumer, big retailers are now releasing quarterly results. Home Depot offers scant evidence of declining consumer appetite. Revenues are at a record — not something you’d expect at a time when a jumbo cut is needed:


Home Depot’s sales tend to rally when more people are moving house. The housing market is perhaps the most widely cited reason for the Fed to cut aggressively; houses are very hard to afford, and new building is languishing. Cheaper mortgages might spark this back into life. The latest data show rising housing starts, but new permits, a leading indicator of building activity, dropped to a post-pandemic low:


It’s a difficult situation. There is a case for a rate cut next month. It’s hard on the current evidence to see that market expectations would be anywhere near where they are without the political pressure. Powell’s Last Stand(which Julian Brigden of Macro Intelligence Partners points out will take place not so far from the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn) might yet deliver quite a shock.





jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it,” Ferris Bueller

The bull market continues, but there are some potential small cracks forming. We will get to all of that, but what has amazed me is three weeks ago we were told there would be no rate cuts, then two weeks ago the mantra was a 0.50% cut was needed. Now the masses seem to have agreed on a 0.25% at the next Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) meeting in about four weeks. Things are changing quickly out there just like Ferris Bueller told us. One thing is that most investors expect a cut in September, but will they really cut with the stock market up near all-time highs?

The market-based pricing suggests there is currently a little less than an 85% chance of a rate cut at the next Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) meeting in four weeks. If you remember last year around this time, we noted that a rate cut with the S&P 500 near all-time highs is rather rare, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. In fact, the Fed cut rates thrice last year with the index near all-time highs (in September, November, and December). The good news is rate cuts near all-time highs have seen stocks higher a year later 20 out of 20 times and when last year’s cuts reach the one year mark, we could have 23 out of 23. In other words, if the Fed cut rates in September and the S&P 500 is still be near new highs, it could be another positive driver for stocks.



To put a bow on this, the Fed absolutely can cut with stocks near all-time highs and should they do it, this could be another reason for the bulls to have some fun.

Minor Cracks​

We will keep this fairly simple, but the number of stocks in the S&P 500 that are above their 20- and 50-day moving averages is lower than it was a month ago, even though the S&P 500 has moved higher. We call this a negative divergence and it could be a clue there is weakness under the surface. Additionally, we are seeing other negative divergences from other indicators we follow. Again, this isn’t over-the-top bearish action, but this coupled with the negative seasonal period we are in could suggest a well-deserved break is possible.



Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Facts vs Feelings with J.C. Parets, Founder of TrendLabs. This was the most viewed episode we’ve ever had and J.C. was hilarious, opinionated, and brought some great takes.

Lastly, I will leave you with this PSA, don’t hold or use scissors like Mr. Powell does! That just looks dangerous.

There’s no rest in the battle over monetary policy. It’s now being fought both on familiar territory — with carefully chosen words in the Federal Open Market Committee’s minutes — and in startling new terrain, as the federal housing regulator digs up alleged evidence of mortgage fraud by a Biden-appointed governor and calls for her resignation. First, the mundane. The minutes don’t name names or offer precise numbers, but give rough indications of how many committee members (in bold below) adhered to different points of view at last month’s meeting, which held steady on rates despite two votes to cut them. Most are plainly still more worried about tariffs and their potential impact on inflation than about anything else. All agree that there are risks of both rising unemployment and accelerating price rises. The key is that a majority “judged the upside risk to inflation as the greater of these two risks,” while several viewed them as roughly balanced, and acouple (presumably the two who voted to cut) thought employment the “more salient risk.” The Fed’s Michelle Bowman, Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook and Adriana Kugler in June. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg Many said: Overall inflation remained somewhat above the committee’s two percent longer-run goal. It could take some time for the full effects of higher tariffs to be felt. Some: Mentioned indicators that could suggest a softening in labor demand. Emphasized that a great deal could be learned in coming months from incoming data. Noted that it would not be feasible or appropriate to wait for complete clarity on the tariffs’ effects before adjusting monetary policy. Stressed that the issue of the persistence of tariff effects on inflation would depend importantly on the stance of monetary policy. A few: Emphasized that they expected higher tariffs to lead only to a one-time increase in the price level that would be realized over a reasonably contained period. Remarked that tariff-related factors could lead to stubbornly elevated inflation. A couple: Suggested that tariff effects were masking the underlying trend of inflation and, setting aside the tariff effects, inflation was close to target. This was a reasonable conversation during unprecedented times among a group of economists who need more data before they’re comfortable cutting rates. Meanwhile, the administration wants to cut, aggressively. Governor Adriana Kugler, who didn’t vote at the meeting, has since resigned. President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Stephen Miran has been nominated to replace her; he would shift the balance at least to 9-3. Any more vacancies would be filled to tip the tally further toward cutting. Cook in the crosshairs. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg The spotlight now turns to Lisa Cook, the governor whose mortgages are now under scrutiny. Trump has demanded her resignation over the fraud allegations; she has said she will gather information to respond to any legitimate questions. Cook was not one of the “couple” who dissented on rates. If she were to resign and be replaced as expected, that would bring the balance to 8-4. It wouldn’t flip the committee in itself, but afterward it might not take much change in the data to shift members a long way. As Cook’s term has more than a decade left to run, replacing her would be a big deal. Two points seem clear. First, what Cook is alleged to have done would be hugely inappropriate behavior for a Fed governor. According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, she bought two different houses within a few months and said on both mortgage applications that they would be her primary residence for 12 months. Second, the alleged offense is widespread and pursuing her on this reflects an astonishing ranking of priorities by the FHFA, whose chief responsibility is to oversee the federal housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In coming months, the Trump-appointed director, Bill Pulte, will probably have to oversee Fannie and Freddie’s reprivatization, by far the biggest move in the world of US housing finance since the Global Financial Crisis. And yet he is devoting time and energy to looking at what Cook put on mortgage application forms. This looks like vindictiveness and a misallocation of regulatory resources. (Cook says she won’t be bullied into resigning.) It’s also a clear message of intent. This White House is thinking a long way out of the box to exert control over public institutions that it sees as having gone astray. It’s going to make Cook’s life very unpleasant. Other Fed governors inclined to disagree with the administration know the same fate awaits if they’re not careful. This is a new way for the government to do business with the Fed, and the market isn’t trying to deal with it. Ahead of the Cook news, fed funds futures put the odds of a cut next month at 84.5%. After the accusations, and the Fed minutes, it was 82.5%. Now, off to the annual central bankers’ symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

​ ​ What Just Happened?​

US indexes sold off a lot earlier on Wednesday, and then pulled back their losses significantly by the close. This isn’t as yet a bear market, or even a correction of the overall market. It looks more like a rotation, or a correction of particular anomalies, which probably should have longer to go. For one spectacular example, Palantir Technologies Inc. has enjoyed the kind of year that companies of its size almost never get. At one point, it was down 23% from last week’s all-time high. By the close, this was down to 16.8%. But its outperformance of the overall market has been so phenomenal that the pullback seems only reasonable. It’s outpaced everyone else in a way that dwarfs even Cisco Systems Inc.’s extraordinary run in the year that led up to its brief reign as the biggest US stock by market cap: There’s no particular reason why outperformance can’t carry on for any given day, but the higher a stock rallies, the more it is likely to fall at some point. Similarly, stocks can always grow more overvalued, so extremes don’t help with timing. But on any worthwhile metric, be it multiples of sales, earnings, book value, or dividend yield, the difference between the market cap-weighted and equal-weighted versions of the S&P 500 entered this selloff at unprecedented levels. A reversal was a matter of time: It’s also noticeable that the turnaround of the last few days hasn’t boosted smaller stocks, but merely knocked froth off the sectors that were most overvalued. The Russell 2000 index is down for the week, and the gap that has opened up with the mega caps of the Russell Top 50 is not closing: The catalyst for the latest rotation, judging by the market chatter, is a report from MIT that can be ordered here and suggested that AI adoption in most cases failed to deliver improved profits. Still, it took people a while to work out how to make money from the internet, too. More such fragments will be needed to force a more significant correction. When it comes, it could well be significant, because markets remain priced for perfection. According to Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research, the S&P 500 entered the week trading at 21 times consensus earnings for next year. The average over the last decade has been 18.5. By his math, earnings would need to beat consensus by 10% for the current price to look attractive (it would deliver 14% upside). If the forecasts are accurate, then a gain like that can only happen if the forward multiple expands to 24 or more — and that is 1990s dot-com territory. Earnings season is the heartbeat of the market - and every day brings fresh signals about where money is flowing. With each report, we learn not just how companies are performing, but how investors are reacting. In the Daily Beat, we spotlight the most important earnings moves from the prior session - the winners, the losers, and the reactions that reveal what really matters to the market right now. Whether it’s a bellwether with broad economic implications or a niche name making waves, we cut through the noise to focus on the setups that matter most. Here are the latest earnings stats from the S&P 500 ​ *Click the image to enlarge it The $121B semiconductor stock, Analog Devices $ADI, had a +2.72 reaction score after reporting a double beat. They reported revenues of $2.88B, versus the expected $2.77B, and earnings per share of $2.06, versus the expected $1.95. The $45B discount store chain, Target $TGT, had a -2.68 reaction score after reporting a double beat. They reported revenues of $25.21B, versus the expected $24.94B, and earnings per share of $2.05, versus the expected $2.04. Lowe's $LOW was another notable report. They reported a double beat and had a muted reaction. This came on the heels of its peer Home Depot $HD posting a miss/miss/pop earlier this week. The reactions from HD and LOW are bullish for the home improvement and construction industries as a whole. Now let's dive into the data and talk about the most important beats ADI has been rewarded for 5 of its last 7 earnings reports ​ Analog Devices rallied 6.3% after this earnings report, and here's what happened: Revenues and EPS skyrocketed year-over-year by 25% and 32%, respectively. They are making strategic investments in robotics, automation, and partnerships (e.g., Teradyne, NVIDIA), which are expected to drive long-term expansion. In addition to the strong quarterly report, the management team issued better-than-expected forward guidance. Of all the semiconductor stocks in the S&P 500, this was one of the best reactions we've seen all season. We love how the market is consistently rewarding them for reporting earnings. It speaks to the strong underlying fundamentals. Now, it's time for that to be reflected in the technicals... If the bulls can follow through in the next few trading sessions, the price will put the finishing touches on a textbook multi-year accumulation pattern. If and when ADI closes above 248, the path of least resistance will decisively shift from sideways to higher for the foreseeable future. TJX has been rewarded for 6 of its last 7 earnings reports ​ TJX Companies rallied 2.7% after this earnings report, and here's what happened: Revenues and EPS increased year-over-year by 7% and 15%, respectively. The EPS growth was above the upper-bound of their previous guidance. Unlike many of their peers, tariffs are not a problem for TJX. This has opened the door for them to increase their market share. In addition to the strong quarterly results, the management team raised its forward guidance. While many apparel retail stocks are struggling because of tariffs, TJX keeps smashing the market's expectations. The market is rewarding them for reporting earnings more consistently than almost all of its peers. This is the leader. The technicals are supportive of the strong fundamentals. Price posted a textbook gap-n-go on the heels of this report, sparking a brand-new primary uptrend. So long as TJX holds above 136, the path of least resistance is decisively higher for the foreseeable future.

Tech stocks are under pressure, and it’s finally showing in the major averages. This weakness has actually been brewing under the hood for some time. Technology sector internals have been deteriorating for the better part of the summer. The new high/low ratio is a solid and simple breadth measure, and it peaked on July 3rd. So, was that it— just a little dip n’ rip, like the one we experienced coming into the month? Or are tougher times ahead for tech? Luckily, we have some clean and clear levels to use as a roadmap. Here’s the Equal-Weight Technology Fund $RSPT:

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Notice how it has formed a potential short-term top right at its Q4 and Q1 highs. Price has been testing the trigger level of this top constantly during the month of August, but for now, bulls are holding the line. If that changes, and RSPT breaks below 40, the odds start to favor a deeper, more prolonged correction. I’ll be looking at the VWAP from the March lows around 37 as support, which represents another 8% of downside. Keep in mind that AVWAP is dynamic support and will continue to rise until it meets price. And while tech is a diverse space, when I think about the likelihood of this being a top, I immediately think about two subsectors and charts. Tech is going wherever semis and software go. Each industry group makes up approximately 35% of the large-cap technology index. And these stocks aren’t just a big deal for this one sector; they drive the entire market. Not to mention, there’s a ton of software in other sectors so that number could be higher, but that’s another conversation. Semis plus software make up almost a third of the S&P 500 and close to half of the Nasdaq 100. Semiconductors are the most important companies in the world and are critical to the health of the overall market.

​

Here’s the VanEck Semiconductor ETF $SMH, digging in and holding support with a similar setup as RSPT. The line in the sand is 280. Meanwhile, software companies are the best businesses in the world, home to many of the largest stocks and top-performers in the market.

​

Here’s the iShares Software ETF $IGV, which just completed a similar tactical top as the two shown above. It is now below the Q4 highs, resulting in a failed breakout of the longer-term consolidation pattern. There we have it. One NO vote, and one YES vote for technology. If software follows through to the downside in the coming days and confirms this top, I fully expect that semiconductors and the broader tech index will follow. If this is the case, I’ll be prepared for a further corrective wave from tech and the broader growth trade. On the other hand, this could end up being a shakeout, as software can scoop higher and fail this top in the coming days. 108 is the level for that. With the much-anticipated Powell speech tomorrow, we could surely see some action. If this is what plays out, look for semis and tech to ramp higher too, and reassert that old leadership.

• The Magnificent 7 ETF ($MAGS) closed lower for a fifth straight day, yet it’s only -3.7% off record highs. Another down day tomorrow would tie for its longest losing streak since the fund was launched in 2023.
  
  
• $MAGS logged its first record high of the year at the end of July, breaking out of a seven-month base by clearing its December peak of $56–$58. If Former resistance doesn't act as support here, it will mark a Failed Breakout.
  
  
• With these seven stocks comprising roughly one-third of the S&P 500, a Failed Breakout would weigh on the broader market. Below $56, Larry highlights potential support near $52, where the 200-day moving average and the AVWAP from April’s lows converge.
  

The Takeaway: The Magnificent 7 ($MAGS) is revisiting the breakout level at $56–$58. This former resistance level should act as support, but a breakdown here would target $52 and weigh on the broader market.






jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

Earnings season is the heartbeat of the market - and every day brings fresh signals about where money is flowing. With each report, we learn not just how companies are performing, but how investors are reacting. In the Daily Beat, we spotlight the most important earnings moves from the prior session - the winners, the losers, and the reactions that reveal what really matters to the market right now. Whether it’s a bellwether with broad economic implications or a niche name making waves, we cut through the noise to focus on the setups that matter most.

Here are the latest earnings stats from the S&P 500

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*Click the image to enlarge it The $12B specialty industrial machinery stock, Nordson $NDSN, had a +2.02 reaction score after reporting a double beat. They posted revenues of $740M, versus the expected $720M, and earnings per share of $2.73, versus the expected $2.64. The $782B discount store behemoth, Walmart $WMT, had a -2.97 reaction score after reporting mixed results. They posted revenues of $177.40B, versus the expected $175.94B, and earnings per share of $0.68, versus the expected $0.73. Now let's dive into the data and talk about the most important beats

NDSN had its 3rd consecutive positive earnings reaction

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Nordson rallied 3% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenues and adjusted EPS increased year-over-year by 12% and 13%, respectively. Their acquisition of Atrion from August of last year for $800M is going better than initially anticipated. In addition to the strong quarterly report, the board approved a new $500M share repurchase authorization.

The market has been concerned about their acquisition of Atrion, but the management team has proved itself. It's going very well! This company just keeps crushing. They have a long track record of returning value to shareholders through 61 years of annual dividend increases. Now, they're shifting to share repurchases, and the market loves it. After a nearly 40% drawdown from December to April, the stock has carved out a textbook bearish-to-bullish reversal pattern. We think the bulls are about to regain control of the primary trend. Adding to our conviction in the technical setup is the way the market has consistently rewarded the stock for its earnings events. If and when NDSN closes above 225, the path of least resistance will decisively shift from sideways to higher for the foreseeable future.

WMT had its 3rd consecutive negative earnings reaction

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Walmart fell 4.5% after this earnings report, and here's what happened:

Revenues increased by 5.6% year-over-year, led by e-commerce sales, which surged 25% over the same timeframe. They are continuing to invest heavily in AI, which is expected to improve profit margins. In addition to the strong quarterly results, the management team raised its forward sales and EPS guidance.

We outlined this setup in Sunday's column of the Weekly Beat, pointing out that sellers were showing up at the February peak, and we expected another negative earnings reaction. We also pointed out that they have some of the steadiest fundamentals in the market. After years of being dominated by Amazon $AMZN in the e-commerce business, this retail giant is finally putting up a serious fight. Not only is it a delightful service (you should try it if you haven't), but it's expanding Walmart's already giant market share, and the market loves it. Ever since the stock snapped a streak of 4 consecutive positive earnings reactions in February, the price has been churning sideways. Confirming the correction is a new streak of negative earnings reactions. We think this is a healthy consolidation in one of the strongest primary uptrends in the S&P 500. So long as WMT holds below 105, the path of least resistance is likely to remain sideways for the foreseeable future. A close above that level would mark the resolution of this corrective wave and the resumption of the primary trend.

Powell caves in: LOL

For the last eight months, the Fed has essentially been frozen in place by extreme policy uncertainty that threatened both its inflation and unemployment goals. Today's speech represented a thaw. The big picture: Faced with a swirl of factors reshaping both the supply and demand sides of the economy — from tariffs driving up prices to tighter immigration policy to tax cuts — Powell took a stand this morning, concluding that it will probably soon be time for an interest rate cut. Powell concluded that this complex mix of economic forces means that "the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance," suggesting that a rate cut could arrive as soon as the Fed's mid-September meeting. He opened the door to a rate cut, though he didn't fully walk through. Markets ripped following the speech, as the prospect of imminent cuts calmed investors. The S&P 500 was up 1.6% as of late morning, and the policy-sensitive two-year Treasury yield was down 0.1 percentage point. Driving the news: Powell described the labor market as being in a "curious kind of balance" resulting from both a slowdown in supply and a demand for workers. "This unusual situation suggests that downside risks to employment are rising. And if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment." He suggested that for the moment, the job market remains largely healthy, however, given the low unemployment rate — and that weak job growth from May through June was a function of tighter immigration policy leading to fewer foreign-born workers on U.S. payrolls. State of play: Powell also said that the "effects of tariffs on consumer prices are now clearly visible. We expect those effects to accumulate over coming months, with high uncertainty about timing and amounts." That is keeping inflation elevated, he said; however, a "reasonable base case is that the effects will be relatively short-lived" as they amount to a one-time adjustment to prices, as opposed to an ongoing inflationary process. Between the lines: The closest Powell came to acknowledging the fusillade of attacks Trump has delivered on him and his colleagues was to say that Fed officials will make their rates decision "based solely on their assessment of the data and its implications for the economic outlook and the balance of risks." That is an implicit rejection of Trump's calls to lower rates to save the government money. "We will never deviate from that approach," he added.

Powell also unveiled a new longer-term framework through which the Fed will set monetary policy in the years ahead, updating an exercise its leaders last completed five years ago. Why it matters: The new framework reflects an effort to reset the central bank's strategy for the higher-rate, higher-inflation environment of the 2020s. Flashback: The 2020 framework was designed to combat the problems of the 2010s, including too-low inflation, and monetary policy being unable to adequately stimulate growth due to the inability to lower interest rates below zero. The post-pandemic economy, with higher trend inflation and interest rates, created different challenges and hence changes to the Fed's framework. In particular, it removed language specifying it would look to mitigate "shortfalls" in employment, changing that to "deviations," to avoid an asymmetric focus on guarding against unemployment relative to inflation. Some analysts believe the previous framework contributed to the Fed being late in fighting inflation in 2021 and 2022. What they're saying: "This year's review considered how economic conditions have evolved over the past five years," Powell said. "During this period, we saw that the inflation situation can change rapidly in the face of large shocks," and interest rates are substantially higher.

Friday, August 22, 2025

In one of the least eventful trading weeks of 2025, ICE Brent has been trading within a narrow bandwidth of $65.80-67.90 per barrel as the end of summer holidays dragged trading volumes notably lower than usual. The huge drop in US stocks and several refinery upsets across the country (such as the Whiting outage) could’ve triggered a more important pricing reaction, however low liquidity kept daily changes minimal.

Trump Signs Off on New Iran Sanctions. The US Treasury Department added 13 commercial entities in Hong Kong, China and the UAE to its list of Iran-related sanctions, simultaneously banning 8 vessels and two China-based port operators in Qingdao and Yangshan, further tightening its pressure on Iran.

Kazakhstan Eyes Reparations from Oil Majors. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Environment Protection informed oil companies operating in the country that they have 40 days to pay a $4.4 billion fine for sulphur pollution in the country, mostly coming from the offshore Kashagan field in Atyrau region.

US Probes Wind Turbine Imports. The US Commerce Department opened a national security investigation into the country’s imports of wind turbines and components, gauging the impact of foreign subsidies on the competitiveness of the US wind industry, slapping a 50% tariff on wind turbines earlier this week.

Venezuela Opens the Door for Chinese Investors. Chinese private oil firm Concord Resources has agreed to invest more than $1 billion in two Venezuelan oilfields, aiming to produce 60,000 b/d by the end of next year from the Lago Cinco and Lagunillas Lago projects after years of underinvestment.

Ukraine Targets Russia’s Pipelines. For the second time this week, Ukrainian armed forces have bombed the Unecha pumping station on the Russia-Ukraine border, once again halting transportation along the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia and stranding some 210,000 b/d of exports.

Seoul Forces Petchem Sector to Shrink. Guided by the Seoul government, ten South Korean petrochemical companies have agreed to cut their naphtha-cracking capacity by 25%, equivalent to 3-3.5 million tonnes per year, to improve profitability amidst industry-wide overcapacity and low margins.

Indian Refiners Resume Russian Oil Imports. Whilst India’s private refiners never really stopped importing Russian crude, the South Asian nation’s government-controlled companies resumed purchases after a two-week hiatus, as confirmed by company officials of IOC and Bharat Petroleum.

Iraq Welcomes US Oil Majors Back. The Iraqi government signed an agreement in principle with US oil firm Chevron (NYSE:CVX) on the Nassiriya project, comprising four exploration blocks in the southern province of Dhi Qar as well as several producing oil fields, seeking to reach 600,000 b/d within 7 years.

China Doubles Down on Overcapacity Curbs. China’s Industry Ministry organizedanother meeting with solar industry representatives to discuss ways to curb overcapacity, saying producers themselves should promote the decommissioning of outdated capacity to avoid ‘low-price disorderly competition’.

Kurdish Production Is Coming Back. Norway’s upstream firm DNO (OSLNO) reported that it had restarted oil production at the Tawke and Peshkabir fields in Iraqi Kurdistan, halted a month ago due to repeated drone strikes carried out by Iraqi militias, ramping up output to 55,000 b/d on a test basis.

Conoco Locks in Key LNG Contract. US oil major ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) agreed to purchase 4 million tonnes of LNG per year from Sempra’s Port Arthur LNG 2 over a 20-year term on a free on board (FOB) basis, having already bought a 30% stake in Port Arthur 1 with an expected commissioning in 2027.

Syria Marks Full Return to Oil Markets. Syria’s Ministry of Petroleum issued a sell tender for at least one cargo of Syrian Heavy crude, the country’s first official attempt to sell its oil since 2011 as the new government in Damascus seeks to ramp up production from 50,000 b/d, one-sixth of its former output.

Norway Finds Even More Oil. Norway’s largest untapped crude project, the 120,000 b/d Yggdrasil developed by Aker BP, saw the discovery of a huge deposit next to its initial find with the Omega Alfa well tapping into 100-130 MMboe of new hydrocarbon reserves, taking the total to 700 MMboe.





Full:https://blockworks.co/news/tether-quasi-sovereign-allocator








jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

This week’s standout is Financials, which stayed unchanged in our sector rankings.

​

We could highlight just about any of these sectors following Friday’s broad-based rally, but the recent action in value is what has my attention right now. For the first time since the rally off the April lows began, value outperformed growth in a big way this week. Among the value groups, Industrials and Financials have been consistent leaders this cycle, while Materials and Energy have been steady laggards. Here’s a look at our overall industry rankings, which show Consumer Financesurging 39 spots and breaking into the Top 20.

​

This subsector includes lenders, payment processors, and fintech companies— which are all breaking out this week. Below are the Top 10 names in the Consumer Finance subsector, ranked by relative strength.

​

This week’s top pick is SoFi $SOFI:

​

We’ve been long SOFI since November, when the stock was completing a textbook reversal pattern above 13.50. Fast forward to today, and it has already hit our first two targets, the latest one at the former all-time highs. Despite an already stellar performance, momentum keeps building, and leadership remains off the charts. I think there’s plenty left in the tank for this fintech winner. The shelf of former highs around 25 provides a logical area to define risk. We’re targeting 40 from there.

What happened last week

Monday: After reporting a double beat, Applied Materials $AMAT had its worst earnings reaction this century. It was also the 6th consecutive quarter that the market punished the $130B semiconductor equipment & materials stock. They reported an all-time high revenue number, growing 8% year-over-year. However, the management team openly stated that this isn't sustainable... For example, they expect a 29% decline in Chinese revenue due to saturation in that customer base.

Tuesday: There weren't any S&P 500 earnings reactions to cover, so we highlighted Bitdeer Technologies $BTDR, which reported mixed results and had its best earnings reaction ever. This $2.5B Singapore-based crypto miner is continuing to expand into the data center industry, and the market loves it. This hybrid model is becoming increasingly common, and we expect to see more of it.

Wednesday: The $405B home improvement retail giant, Home Depot $HD, missed headline expectations, but the market rewarded it. Wall Street has been bearish on this company because of the tariff situation, but the market isn't worried about it - they raised guidance. Medtronic $MDT beat the market's expectations, but was punished for the 4th consecutive earnings report. In addition to learning about their quarterly results, we also learned that the legendary activist investment shop Elliott Investment Management has built a substantial stake in the company.

Thursday: The $121B semiconductor stock, Analog Devices $ADI, smashed expectations and rallied over 6% for the 5th positive earnings reaction in the last 7 quarters. The bulls followed through, resolving a prolonged accumulation pattern and printing fresh all-time highs. One of the hottest retail stocks in the world, TJX Companies $TJX, posted a double beat and was rewarded for it. This name has rallied after 6 of its last 7 earnings reports, one of the best streaks in its industry.

Friday: The $12B specialty industrial machinery stock, Nordson $NDSN, beat headline expectations and had its 3rd consecutive positive earnings reaction. The price also looks poised to climb out of a textbook bearish-to-bullish reversal pattern. The $782B discount store behemoth, Walmart $WMT, gave a mixed earnings report and was punished for the 3rd consecutive quarter. The stock continues to churn sideways in the context of one of the strongest primary uptrends in the S&P 500.

What's happening next week

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Next week will be all about the world's largest stock, Nvidia $NVDA. The $4.34T darling of the AI Industrial Revolution is scheduled to report earnings after Wednesday's closing bell. Beyond those, we’ll also be watching: The $89B computer hardware stock, Dell Technologies $DELL. The $66B data warehouse stock, Snowflake $SNOW. And one of the largest Chinese stocks, Alibaba $BABA. In addition, we'll hear from the cybersecurity giant, CrowdStrike $CRWD, the dominant sports retailer, Dick's Sporting Goods $DKS, and the Canadian bank, Bank of Montreal $BMO. It's set to be another eventful week, so there will be plenty to cover in The Daily Beat. Now, let’s dig into the setups we'll be monitoring closest next week.

Here's the setup in NVDA ahead of Wednesday's earnings report

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Nvidia is expected to post $45.94B in revenue and EPS of $1.00. From a technical perspective, the stock has been the definition of a secular leader. After going nowhere from 2002 to 2016, it has since surged in near-parabolic fashion, becoming the world's most valuable company along the way. With the price challenging a long-term Fibonacci extension level, investors are asking whether this leg still has room or if expectations are too far ahead of reality.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for NVDA

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Over the past three years, Nvidia has consistently outpaced Wall Street estimates with triple-digit Y/Y earnings growth in multiple quarters. But earnings reactions have been anything but consistent. We've seen anywhere from +24% to -8.5% over the past few years. It's safe to assume that there will be volatility associated with this event. The bottom line is that this stock tends to deliver, but the market’s reaction hinges on sentiment, positioning, and how much was already priced in.

Here's the setup in BABA ahead of Friday's earnings report

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Alibaba is projected to report $35.36B in revenue and EPS of $2.06. Technically, the stock is carving out a textbook multi-year bearish-to-bullish reversal pattern. With shares currently about $20 shy of the breakout level, there's a chance this earnings event will be the catalyst to resolve this massive base and mark the beginning of a brand-new primary uptrend. But without that confirmation, the path of least resistance will remain sideways for the foreseeable future.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for BABA

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Looking at earnings history, Alibaba has delivered steady revenue growth and often surpassed EPS estimates. However, price reactions have leaned negative. If and when the base we previously mentioned is resolved, we want to see a shift in the earnings reactions to confirm that new price trend. Without the fundamentals supporting the technicals, it's difficult to be too optimistic about this Chinese behemoth.

Here's the setup in DELL ahead of Thursday's earnings report

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Dell is forecasted to report $29.02B in revenue and EPS of $2.29. Technically speaking, this stock is in what we call “No Man’s Land”, stuck between 2 key Fibonacci extension levels. The breakout in late 2023 / early 2024 was impressive, but momentum has stalled, and the price has carved out a series of lower highs and lower lows. The next move hinges on whether this earnings print provides enough fuel to retest the highs or if the stock rolls back toward support.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for DELL

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Fundamentally, Dell has shown resilient revenue and EPS growth in recent quarters, especially as AI demand has reignited interest in PCs and servers. But the market’s response has been ruthless. Despite growing its top and bottom lines, the market has punished shareholders for the last 3 earnings events. This coincides with the series of lower highs and lower lows that we previously mentioned. In other words, the bearish technicals are being confirmed by the fundamentals.

Here's the setup in SNOW ahead of Wednesday's earnings report

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Snowflake is expected to post $1.09B in revenue and EPS of $0.27. The technical picture shows what we refer to as a “Kardashian Bottom” pattern playing out. This is one of our favorite accumulation patterns because it has led to some of the best uptrends ever. If and when the stock resolves this pattern, the path of least resistance would shift from sideways to higher. It would also open up the door to a retest of the late 2021 peak. But heading into earnings, the stock is once again rolling over just shy of the upper bound of its multi-year range.

Here are the past 3 years of earnings results & reactions for SNOW

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Snowflake continues to deliver strong top-line growth, with revenue advancing 25–30% Y/Y. However, EPS has been more uneven, with multiple quarters of double-digit declines. Over the past two years, this stock's earnings reactions have been among the most volatile in large-cap tech. That makes this week’s print a binary setup: either SNOW clears 230 and runs, or it remains stuck in a multi-year range.

• More stocks are going higher vs going lower.
• If you do the work and look at the charts the math is simple.
• Stock market strength is still building.

Risk appetite for stocks isn't slowing. It's accelerating.

It's funny... I keep hearing people talk about "signs of a top" everywhere you look.

But when I actually do the work and go through the charts, I'm seeing the exact opposite.

Where are all these supposed warning signs? Because the charts aren't showing them.

Just this week, the NYSE Composite Index - which tracks every stock that trades on the world's most important exchange - broke out to fresh all-time highs.

After moving sideways for nearly 10 months, it finally looks ready to run again:



Upside market participation among stocks is increasing, not decreasing.

The list of stocks making new highs keeps getting longer, not shorter.

The list of stocks in uptrends keeps growing, not shrinking, which is what you'd actually expect at a market top.

Nearly 67% of stocks listed on the NYSE are trading above their 200-day moving average. This is a quick-and-dirty way to quantify how many stocks are in "uptrends."

Two-thirds of them, as it turns out. That's the most all year - and, again, the list keeps getting longer.

I'll be visiting the New York Stock Exchange this week. I say it every time: It's one of the most beautiful buildings in New York City.

I've got some meetings with a bunch of traders flying in from around the country. I'll send some pics.

For now, just remember...

This is not weakness. This is strength. And it's still building.

​

This Week in Everybody's Wrong​

On Monday, we talked about the most important group of stocks on the planet.

Semiconductors were trying to do something they hadn't been able to do: break out to new all-time highs on an equal-weight basis.

Here are the key levels to watch...

On Tuesday, we described how the American consumer is the engine driving the U.S. economy.

So it gets my attention when the equal-weight version of the Consumer Discretionary index is hitting new all-time highs.

Here's what I mean when I say, "Sector rotation is the lifeblood of bull markets."

On Wednesday, we went even deeper on rotation.

Have you ever compared the equal-weight S&P 500 to the traditional index?

Rotation is the heartbeat of every bull market - and not just some of them.

On Thursday, we talked about how the Dow Jones Industrial Average had just made a new all-time high on an equal-weight basis.

We don't fight Papa Dow around here, not anymore.

And new highs are characteristic of uptrends.

On Friday, we learned that the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) survey showed more bears than bulls for the third straight week.

Stocks are ripping to new all-time highs, but investors don't believe in the rally.

Good... The smart money is still buying stocks.

On Saturday, we welcomed back Quantitative Analyst Grant Hawkridge for a deep dive into our NOW Score system.

Grant is the engineer behind everything we do here.

Here's Grant on the benefits of process and structure.

Have a great Sunday.

We'll see you Monday morning...

In case you missed it, I dropped my latest Red Flag Alert to my members last week. It's on UPS, which I first started digging into back in 2021 when I was doing institutional research. Long story short: the stock is getting killed, the balance sheet is in shambles, and I'm not convinced management can turn things around. A lot went into this report—as I said, I first looked at this company several years ago—and I wanted to share a snippet with you. As always, the full report is available for my members. Enjoy – Herb

Greetings from somewhere in the Labrador Sea... I’m on a ship with about 400 others headed to a few places my wife and I have never visited, but have been on our list. For us, cruises are not cruises, the way many of you think of cruises, but an efficient and convenient way to see parts of the world we want to see without packing/unpacking. Plus... we enjoy being on the water. Being on a ship isn’t for everybody. But it has gotten us to every continent and more than 50 countries. What’s clear is that these ships aren’t going out empty. The ship we’re on is full or near-full. And whenever I walk past the “future cruise consultant’s” desk there are always people stacked up to see her. The cruise industry’s remarkable recovery post-pandemic confirms just how much people like to cruise, but in my view they’re split in two groups: People who cruise for the sake of cruising, and people who go for the itinerary. We’re in the latter group, and the good news for the cruise industry is... I would bet more people are in the other. Still, the industry faces what I consider to be a boatload full of risks. And I’m even not talking about financial stressors, including efforts to whittle down high debt levels required to survive Covid. Among the issues I see, in no particular order – based on my observations (which may be skewed because I don’t do the mass market mega-ships)...

Due to geopolitical issues, there are fewer places to go. That may change, but Russia is closed, China is somewhat open, the Suez Canal is closed, impacting ports in the Middle East, and Taiwan is a wild card. And Dubai, which is a major embarkation/debarkation port, is at the whim of tensions in Iran, which could open or close the Strait of Hormuz. And even if countries are open, backlash against big or ecologically unfit cruise ships in many popular ports like Barcelona, Venice and even Norway has skyrocketed. At the same time, as competition intensifies, there’s a risk of overcapacity as bigger and bigger ships are being built. These small ships are a vanishing breed, with the notable exception of the super-luxury lines such as Four Seasons and Ritz, which have taken pricing and experience up a few notches. And they’re possibly stealing share from smaller yachts. There’s also a proliferation of expedition ships, though I would argue there are only so many places in Greenland you need to go. With more and bigger ships the number of qualified staff, which have experience in the hospitality industry, is limited... worldwide. This is obvious to seasoned cruisers – especially on the so-called luxury lines. Cost-cutting... Certainly at the so-called “luxury” level, the perks are fewer, with subtle cuts here and there.

Finally, there’s this chart from the Cruise Line Industry Association’s latest annual report, which shows a deceleration in growth by 2028...

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As growth slows, capacity is expected to continue growing..

​

For what it’s worth: That last chart on projected capacity, which goes through 2028, is from the industry’s year-ago report. The most recent report’s capacity forecast didn’t go beyond 2025. Interpret at will.

The Financial Times weighs in... Not on cruises, but on the WhatsApp/China stock scams, that is, which I first red-flagged here back in June. This snippet from their story...

Stock pump and dumps — where people with a vested interest artificially inflate a company’s share price before abruptly selling their own holdings — have plagued US markets for decades but were last a major problem during the bull run of 2020 and 2021, when dozens of unprofitable Chinese groups rocketed higher then tumbled shortly after listing. The FBI said last month it had seen a 300 per cent year-on-year increase in victim complaints “referencing ramp and dump stock fraud”. It added that investors were being targeted on social media by people impersonating “legitimate brokerage firms or well-known stock analysts”. Many scams are linked to the record number of Chinese companies that went public on US stock exchanges in 2024, a trend that has continued this year with China and Hong Kong-based companies dominating the otherwise sleepy US microcap IPO market.

My interpretation: yet another sign of an unhinged market.

Speaking of which, this market rolls on... Even with the recent “tech selloff,” it wasn’t much different than the seas I’m sailing on. A new high here, a selloff there, a rally there. This market in this current go-round has been as easy as, buy the dip, let ‘er rip! There, of course, lies the danger – especially for newbies who appear to be driving much of this market, but also pros who fear they’ll miss out – just like they did with SPACs. And, as I’ve written several times now... SPACs are back! Even the biggest SPAC promoter of the 2021 SPAC-tacular boom/bust is back, per the FT...

​

Trading and betting has morphed into entertainment for many Americans. Group chats pop with comments from friends on sports, hot stocks and memes. Everyone seems to know someone who made millions overnight in cryptocurrencies. Changed attitudes toward gambling have coincided with tech advances that have made it easier, and cheaper, to trade a wide variety of assets. Some brokerages have sought to “gamify” investing, creating the look and feel of a casino within their apps. At the same time, they also offer high-octane trades on things such as options and prediction markets.

It works, of course, until it doesn’t. Market strategist John Hussman of Hussman Econometrics, who is often painted as a perma-bear – and who I’ve been quoting for decades, which means he has decades of cycles under his belt – sees it this way, in a long explanation that leads up to this conclusion...

[F]rom the standpoint of valuations, a century of market history, the economics of equilibrium, and just plain arithmetic, my own take is simple: I expect this bubble to end in tears.

They all do! But riddle me this... will you be buying that dip? The new wild card, after all, is the parlor game of which company the government – deficit notwithstanding – will invest in next? And if not the government – there’s always Softbank. What a world!

Moving on, let’s talk assholes... Like the guy who ran the news division of a TV network – who cancelled my meeting with him while I was sitting in his office for an appointment we had for an interview. Then there was the now-dead investment banker who for a time was a good source. He showed his Mr. Hyde side when I mentioned to him casually on a call that his executive assistant and I lived in the same town in New Jersey... and that I’d see her on the train every now and then. “Don’t you ever talk to her again,” he barked. I’m not sure I ever talked with him again. (And he was one of the nicer ones! Don’t even get me started on the well-known head of one of the best known securities firms who was so incensed by something I wrote that, well... let’s just say there are some things you can’t unsee or unhear.) All of these jerks, long thought to be banished from my memory, popped back into my head when I read a fabulous essay by my former CNBC colleague and non-asshole Bob Pisani headlined, “Assholes and How to Deal with Them.” He wrote...

I come from the world of media and Wall Street I worked at the intersection of two great businesses: television and Wall Street. I met a lot of brilliant and generous people, many of whom changed my life for the better. I also met a lot of assholes. I mean, a lot of assholes. What is it about these two businesses that bring out so many assholes? What is an asshole? Assholes are people who think the normal rules of civil society don’t apply to them. They’re people who think their needs and wants are all that matter and don’t give a rat’s ass about other people’s needs or wants. They’re people who use bullying and intimidation to get what they want. They’re people who look for reasons to not get along with people and undermine them, because they believe that is the best way to get ahead. They’re people who view everyone on earth as a tool they can use to get ahead. Finally, real assholes never apologize. For anything.

No – they don’t. You can read his entire essay here. Enjoy.

Finally, if you’re wondering what I’m doing on my summer vacation... birds are the bane of my photographic existence. Getting them in flight, not blurred, is my holy grail. After tinkering with the settings and taking more than 100 photos of puffins at Heimaey on Iceland’s Westman Islands did the stars align and my trusty Sony RX10 iii captured this...

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On to Greenland, where the midges and heavy winds await.

jog on
duc