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

China balloons, market bubbles and plenty of frothy convo.

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

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Warm Up

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

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

--- Meme Stocks moving again

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

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

- There is a Sushi Terrorist on the loose

- Hustle Bros are latching on and sucking your wallets

- A new FED word to watch

Market Update

- Blowout Jobs report - what in tar-nation?

- Another fraud uncovered - India

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

- Powell speaks - Whipsaw

Golf Fitting this week..

- Pretty interesting technology

- Callaway Paradym X

MARKETS!

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

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

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

Fed Speak

- There was irrational exuberance

- Transitory inflation

- Green shoots

- quantitative easing

- not thinking about thinking about thinking about...

- Average inflation targeting

- balance outlook

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

Earnings Update

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

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

MEME Stocks Moving again

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

- AI Stocks on the move

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

 Fed decision  and Employment Report?

-- Odds rise after the the BLS employment report

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

- labor participation rate rising

- 3.4% unemployment rate (lowest since 1969)

- USD jumps, Rates turn higher

- Thoughts?

State of the Union Speech

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

Earnings  and corporate

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

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

- Amazon was down as AWS missed

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

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

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

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

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

- HP cutting 6,000 jobs

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