What a week - markets on fire!

Inflation is everywhere - but the latest retail reports show a deflationary trend.

Economic realty - the Fed's communication strategy is working - maybe too well.

Russia fighting back on the economic front - what that could mean to foreign investment in the future.

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

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

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

Love the Show?

Then how about a Donation?

Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Warm Up

- Breaking In - My Car That Is....!

- BIG week for markets - up 6%++++

- Moviegoers spending - Top Gun tops box office record for Memorial Day weekend

- The Monkey Pox - headline grabbing

- Amazon stock split - coming this week

- Retail Apocalypse claiming more - inventories out of whack

Market Update

- Follow up was a divergent signal - (YTD lows and VIX at 30? (Shows that this may be localized - tech etc)

- - Someone laying big VIX bet

- Fed QT taper begins - the experiment is fully underway again

- FED carrying huge losses (unrealized)

- Stocks seem a little more upbeat - investors bargain hunting?

Market Update - Last week (Tape Painting?)

S&P 500: +6.58%

DJIA: +6021%

NAS 100: +7.2%

Small Cap : +6.5%

- Big moves on small tech names that were pummeled

VIX Bet

- Today someone loaded up on $VIX $150 calls for December 21 expiration.

- Maybe just a simple catastrophic bet or.....?

- Never hit that high (82.69 on 16 March 2020)

Amazon Stock Split

- June 6, 20/1

- Now price will be 120, which may attract option traders.

- Have to own 100 shares to do covered call strategy - was harder for some with price at $2,500

- Also could be problematic as put may be more reasonably priced.

Case-Shiller POPS

- Housing prices up big! The March S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index scores a 21.2% increase vs. 20.0% consensus on a year-over-year basis.

- That is something that you do not see too often - if ever.

- The last time was back in 2007-2008 as housing was seen as an investment that was leveraged to the hill.

- This time, it is different, but the same.

- The leverage is not with the banks as it was, but there are plenty of investment properties out there with the hopes that the rental game will continue.

And this...

- The Hampton's summer rental market is facing an unexpected chill as inventory piles up and prices come down

- Median rental prices in the first quarter fell 26%, according to Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel. Brokers say some owners are slashing prices by 30% or more just to fill their properties.

- Vacationers who used to rent in the Hamptons wound up buying in 2020 and 2021 to have a more permanent getaway. The average sales price topped $2.6 million in the first quarter of this year, up 25% over the same quarter last year

One More

- Sharply higher mortgage rates have caused a sudden pullback in home sales, and now sellers are rushing to get in before the red-hot market cools off dramatically.

- The supply of homes for sale jumped 9% last week compared with the same period a year ago

- April sales of newly built homes, also measured by signed contracts, dropped a much wider-than-expected 16% compared with March

- BOO HOO - "We used to get 10 to 15 offers on most houses," said Lindsay Katz, a real estate broker at Redfin in the Los Angeles area. "Now I'm seeing between two and six offers on a house, a good house."

Inflation - Europe

- Euro zone inflation rose to yet another record high in May, challenging the European Central Bank view that gradual interest rate increases from July will be enough to tame stubbornly high price growth.

- Inflation in the 19 countries sharing the euro accelerated to 8.1% in May from 7.4% in April, beating expectations for 7.7% as price growth continued to broaden,