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DHUnplugged #761: Running of The Bulls
Back from Vacation – refreshed?
Fun with Coldplay!
A quick look at how indices and sectors are doing
Sugar in the news….
The REAL running of the bulls – bad things happen
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
INTERACTIVE BROKERS
Warm-Up
- Back from Vacation - refreshed?
- Fun with Coldplay!
- Sugar in the news....
- The REAL running of the bulls - bad things happen
Markets
- Earnings Season is here - about to get some big results this week
- Some earnings to discuss
- A quick look at how indices and sectors are doing
- Markets react to Trump/Fed comments
- YUGE deal with Japan
Market Update
Top to Bottom in - Fed - April (2 Months)
Bottom to Recovery of Loss - (2 months)
Now overshot and climbing to new ATH
DJIA up 4.8%
SP500 Up 7.69%
NASDAQ up 9%
Bitcoin Up 24%
Emerging Markets up 24%
USD down 10%
Gold up 24%
Copper up 35%
Small Caps up 0.95%
Apple DOWN 14%
YTD Sectors
Staring off: Will the TARIFFS actually go into play on August 1st, 2025???
What to do?
- Here we go again...
- I heard Adam and Tina coming to Florida next week and I have not heard from them....
-- Now maybe it is nowhere near me - Florida is a big state... (Am I being too sensitive?)
- If JCD came to FLA - I would think you would call me.... right?
Lessons
- Astronomer, the tech company that found itself launched into the public eye after its CEO Andy Byron was spotted on a Jumbotron video at a Coldplay concert last embracing an employee, announced that Byron has been placed on leave.
- Astronomer’s cofounder and chief product officer Pete DeJoy is now serving as interim CEO, the company said in a statement Friday night.
- “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,” the statement said in part, adding that the company’s board of directors “has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.”
- PEOPLE - think before you do stupid things!
NETFLIX Earnings
- Netflix posted second-quarter revenue growth of 16% on Thursday after the closing bell.
- The company raised its full-year revenue guidance, citing “healthy” member growth and ad sales.
- Netflix reported revenue of $11.08 billion for the second quarter, higher than Wall Street’s estimates of $11.07 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
-Stock was sold off after - priced to perfection
- Netflix’s higher forecast reflects the weakening of the U.S. dollar compared with other currencies as well as “healthy” member growth and ad sales, the company said in a statement. (What happened to constant currency?????)
- Off 8% this month, Up 36% YTD
Impressive
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Thursday reported a near 61% year-on-year rise in second-quarter profit, hitting a record high and beating estimates, as demand for artificial intelligence chips stayed strong.
- The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer forecast third-quarter revenue between $31.8 billion and $33.0 billion — a 38% year-over-year increase and 8% higher from the prior quarter at the midpoint.
- - Revenue: 933.80 billion new Taiwan dollars ($31.7 billion), vs. NT$931.24 billion expected
- - Net income: NT$398.27 billion, vs. NT$377.86 billion
On the Other Hand
- ASML warned of the possibility of no growth in 2026, even as it beat top and bottom line expectations for the second quarter.
- ASML’s guidance for the current quarter missed expectations while it narrowed its own forecast for the rest of the year.
- Shares of the firm ended the day 11.4% lower after the report
- ASML is the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, which are essential for producing cutting-edge semiconductor chips. These machines are used by top chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel to fabricate chips with features as small as a few nanometers
JAPAN DEAL
- We have a huge deal - no specifics but really big
- 15% tariffs on goods
- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday stateside announced that he had made the “largest Deal ever” with Japan, that involves “reciprocal” tariffs of 15% on the country’s exports to the U.S.
- In a post on Truth Social, Trump also said that Japan will invest $550 billion into the United States, adding that the U.S. will “receive 90% of the Profits.”
OpenIA and Google
- OpenAI said Wednesday that it expects to use Google’s cloud infrastructure for its popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence assistant.
- The reach for additional capacity aligns with OpenAI’s desire for more computing power to meet heavy demand after initially relying exclusively on Microsoft
for cloud capacity. The two companies’ relations have evolved since then, with Microsoft naming OpenAI as a competitor last year.
-- Theory - Google (struggling to maintain its existence in a post-search world) gave them a really "competitive" pricing to win this account - hoping others will follow
EVEN MORE~!
- OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge Alphabet’s market-dominating Google Chrome.
- The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks, three of the people said, and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web. It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google’s success: user data.
Trial Balloon
- Comments that Trump will "FIRE" Powell last week sparked a quick sell-off in stocks and bonds. (A key Trump advisor made those comments)
- But all that was reversed within an hour as Trump said that was not true
- Stories about potential fraud charges due to cost overruns with refurb of the Fed's office building. (Cost now $2.5 Billion!)
- DID SOME DIGGING: Once construction began, the general contractor came across unexpected asbestos in the building, toxic soil contamination and a higher-than-expected water table, the Journal said.
- Inflation was a problem, too. Budget documents released at the end of last year showed “significant increases” in the cost of steel, cement, wood and other materials that “far exceed standard cost escalations,” the Journal reported.
- There were also changes to the scope - the agency added high-cost below-ground square footage to its office building adjacent to its historic headquarters to offset space it lost after the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts asked it to nix plans for a five-story tower addition.
Fed Push-back
- Chairman Jerome Powell and the central bank is quietly pushing back with a new “Frequently Asked Questions” page on its website defending the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project.
- The project aims to modernize the Federal Reserve’s campus by renovating three buildings overlooking the National Mall and adding a visitors center.
- “It involves a complete overhaul and modernization that preserves two historic buildings that have not been comprehensively renovated since their construction in the 1930s,” according to the Fed’s web page, which went up one day after Vought’s remarks on how the Fed was mismanaging the project.
AI Headway - Finance
- Anthropic on Tuesday announced Claude tools for financial services as part of the artificial intelligence startup’s latest attempt to court enterprise customers.
- The so-called Financial Analysis Solution can help financial professionals make investment decisions, analyze markets and conduct research, Anthropic said. It includes the company’s Claude 4 models, Claude Code and Claude for Enterprise with expanded usage limits, implementation support and other features.
- “What this is is a tailored version of Claude for Enterprise,” Kate Jensen, Anthropic’s head of revenue said at an event in New York City on Tuesday. “It’s specifically built for financial analysts, and it’s equipped for the nuance, accuracy and reasoning that you need to handle the complexity of your work.”
- As part of its new Financial Analysis Solution, Claude will get real-time access to financial information through data providers like Box, PitchBook, Databricks, S&P Global and Snowflake.
Forward Thinking
- Apple has signed a $500 million deal with MP Materials (MP) for rare earth magnets, mitigating supply risks after China curbed exports this year and representing a major coup for MP that sent its shares soaring by 20%.
- The backing from one of the world's most valuable companies comes after MP, which operates the only U.S. rare earths mine, last week agreed to a multibillion-dollar deal with the U.S. Department of Defense that will see the Pentagon become its largest shareholder.
- As part of the agreement, Apple will prepay MP $200 million for a supply of magnets slated to begin in 2027.
Cross Contamination
- Elon Musk ruled out a merger between Tesla and xAI but said he plans to hold a shareholder vote on investment in the artificial intelligence startup by the automaker, in the latest step to deepen integration across his business empire.
- $2 Billion of the $5 Billion share sale of xAI
- Tesla shareholders are now going to get a nice piece of Twitter (gigantically artificially overpriced) - JOY!
Sugar Sugar
- President Donald Trump said last Wednesday that Coca-Cola had agreed to use cane sugar in its beverages in the U.S. after his discussions with the company.
"I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
- Coca-Cola switched to High Fructose Corn Syrup in 1984 (Regan)
----Cane Sugar: Broken down into glucose and fructose in the body. Excessive intake is linked to obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic issues.
----Corn Syrup: Especially HFCS has been scrutinized for its potential role in increasing fat accumulation and insulin resistance, though research is ongoing and often debated.
-- Florida, Texas and Louisiana make up the majority of cane sugar
--------"Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar doesn’t make sense," said Corn Refiners Association President and CEO John Bode. "Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.”
- What shall we call it CokeCane?
----Coca-Cola on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations as strong demand in Europe offset weaker volume in other markets. STOCK DOWN
Dumb Run
- A man was gored and seven others lightly injured on Tuesday, the second day of Pamplona's San Fermin festival in which thousands of people line the mediaeval city's narrow streets for the centuries-old tradition of running with bulls.
- The man who was gored, identified only as being older than 25, was injured by a bull horn under his right armpit, a spokesperson for the city emergency services said.
New App by Dorsey
- Jack Dorsey spent the weekend building Bitchat, a new decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app that works entirely over Bluetooth mesh networks, with no internet, central servers, phone numbers or emails required.
- The Twitter co-founder announced Sunday that the beta version is live on TestFlight, with a full white paper available on GitHub.
- In a post on X Sunday, Dorsey called it a personal experiment in “bluetooth mesh networks, relays and store and forward models, message encryption models, and a few other things.”
Jack Dorsey Pic
M&A
- Chocolate maker Ferrero has agreed to buy cereal giant WK Kellogg in a deal valued at $3.1 billion, the companies announced Thursday.
- Shares of WK Kellogg soared 30% in premarket trading on the announcement.
Sad News
- Ozzy Osbourne, the wailing Black Sabbath singer-turned-solo act who took the “Crazy Train” from a bleak childhood in working-class Birmingham, England, to heavy metal stardom, has died.
- He was 76.
OH and..
- Genius Bill passes and is signed into law..
- Does anyone know why called genius Bill????
- HINT: Stablecoin big part of it...
Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?
Closest to The Pin for IBM (IBM)
Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!
FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS
See this week’s stock picks HERE
Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter
Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter
View all episodes
By Horowitz and Dvorak
4.5
412412 ratings
Back from Vacation – refreshed?
Fun with Coldplay!
A quick look at how indices and sectors are doing
Sugar in the news….
The REAL running of the bulls – bad things happen
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
INTERACTIVE BROKERS
Warm-Up
- Back from Vacation - refreshed?
- Fun with Coldplay!
- Sugar in the news....
- The REAL running of the bulls - bad things happen
Markets
- Earnings Season is here - about to get some big results this week
- Some earnings to discuss
- A quick look at how indices and sectors are doing
- Markets react to Trump/Fed comments
- YUGE deal with Japan
Market Update
Top to Bottom in - Fed - April (2 Months)
Bottom to Recovery of Loss - (2 months)
Now overshot and climbing to new ATH
DJIA up 4.8%
SP500 Up 7.69%
NASDAQ up 9%
Bitcoin Up 24%
Emerging Markets up 24%
USD down 10%
Gold up 24%
Copper up 35%
Small Caps up 0.95%
Apple DOWN 14%
YTD Sectors
Staring off: Will the TARIFFS actually go into play on August 1st, 2025???
What to do?
- Here we go again...
- I heard Adam and Tina coming to Florida next week and I have not heard from them....
-- Now maybe it is nowhere near me - Florida is a big state... (Am I being too sensitive?)
- If JCD came to FLA - I would think you would call me.... right?
Lessons
- Astronomer, the tech company that found itself launched into the public eye after its CEO Andy Byron was spotted on a Jumbotron video at a Coldplay concert last embracing an employee, announced that Byron has been placed on leave.
- Astronomer’s cofounder and chief product officer Pete DeJoy is now serving as interim CEO, the company said in a statement Friday night.
- “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,” the statement said in part, adding that the company’s board of directors “has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.”
- PEOPLE - think before you do stupid things!
NETFLIX Earnings
- Netflix posted second-quarter revenue growth of 16% on Thursday after the closing bell.
- The company raised its full-year revenue guidance, citing “healthy” member growth and ad sales.
- Netflix reported revenue of $11.08 billion for the second quarter, higher than Wall Street’s estimates of $11.07 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
-Stock was sold off after - priced to perfection
- Netflix’s higher forecast reflects the weakening of the U.S. dollar compared with other currencies as well as “healthy” member growth and ad sales, the company said in a statement. (What happened to constant currency?????)
- Off 8% this month, Up 36% YTD
Impressive
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Thursday reported a near 61% year-on-year rise in second-quarter profit, hitting a record high and beating estimates, as demand for artificial intelligence chips stayed strong.
- The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer forecast third-quarter revenue between $31.8 billion and $33.0 billion — a 38% year-over-year increase and 8% higher from the prior quarter at the midpoint.
- - Revenue: 933.80 billion new Taiwan dollars ($31.7 billion), vs. NT$931.24 billion expected
- - Net income: NT$398.27 billion, vs. NT$377.86 billion
On the Other Hand
- ASML warned of the possibility of no growth in 2026, even as it beat top and bottom line expectations for the second quarter.
- ASML’s guidance for the current quarter missed expectations while it narrowed its own forecast for the rest of the year.
- Shares of the firm ended the day 11.4% lower after the report
- ASML is the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, which are essential for producing cutting-edge semiconductor chips. These machines are used by top chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel to fabricate chips with features as small as a few nanometers
JAPAN DEAL
- We have a huge deal - no specifics but really big
- 15% tariffs on goods
- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday stateside announced that he had made the “largest Deal ever” with Japan, that involves “reciprocal” tariffs of 15% on the country’s exports to the U.S.
- In a post on Truth Social, Trump also said that Japan will invest $550 billion into the United States, adding that the U.S. will “receive 90% of the Profits.”
OpenIA and Google
- OpenAI said Wednesday that it expects to use Google’s cloud infrastructure for its popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence assistant.
- The reach for additional capacity aligns with OpenAI’s desire for more computing power to meet heavy demand after initially relying exclusively on Microsoft
for cloud capacity. The two companies’ relations have evolved since then, with Microsoft naming OpenAI as a competitor last year.
-- Theory - Google (struggling to maintain its existence in a post-search world) gave them a really "competitive" pricing to win this account - hoping others will follow
EVEN MORE~!
- OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge Alphabet’s market-dominating Google Chrome.
- The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks, three of the people said, and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web. It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google’s success: user data.
Trial Balloon
- Comments that Trump will "FIRE" Powell last week sparked a quick sell-off in stocks and bonds. (A key Trump advisor made those comments)
- But all that was reversed within an hour as Trump said that was not true
- Stories about potential fraud charges due to cost overruns with refurb of the Fed's office building. (Cost now $2.5 Billion!)
- DID SOME DIGGING: Once construction began, the general contractor came across unexpected asbestos in the building, toxic soil contamination and a higher-than-expected water table, the Journal said.
- Inflation was a problem, too. Budget documents released at the end of last year showed “significant increases” in the cost of steel, cement, wood and other materials that “far exceed standard cost escalations,” the Journal reported.
- There were also changes to the scope - the agency added high-cost below-ground square footage to its office building adjacent to its historic headquarters to offset space it lost after the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts asked it to nix plans for a five-story tower addition.
Fed Push-back
- Chairman Jerome Powell and the central bank is quietly pushing back with a new “Frequently Asked Questions” page on its website defending the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project.
- The project aims to modernize the Federal Reserve’s campus by renovating three buildings overlooking the National Mall and adding a visitors center.
- “It involves a complete overhaul and modernization that preserves two historic buildings that have not been comprehensively renovated since their construction in the 1930s,” according to the Fed’s web page, which went up one day after Vought’s remarks on how the Fed was mismanaging the project.
AI Headway - Finance
- Anthropic on Tuesday announced Claude tools for financial services as part of the artificial intelligence startup’s latest attempt to court enterprise customers.
- The so-called Financial Analysis Solution can help financial professionals make investment decisions, analyze markets and conduct research, Anthropic said. It includes the company’s Claude 4 models, Claude Code and Claude for Enterprise with expanded usage limits, implementation support and other features.
- “What this is is a tailored version of Claude for Enterprise,” Kate Jensen, Anthropic’s head of revenue said at an event in New York City on Tuesday. “It’s specifically built for financial analysts, and it’s equipped for the nuance, accuracy and reasoning that you need to handle the complexity of your work.”
- As part of its new Financial Analysis Solution, Claude will get real-time access to financial information through data providers like Box, PitchBook, Databricks, S&P Global and Snowflake.
Forward Thinking
- Apple has signed a $500 million deal with MP Materials (MP) for rare earth magnets, mitigating supply risks after China curbed exports this year and representing a major coup for MP that sent its shares soaring by 20%.
- The backing from one of the world's most valuable companies comes after MP, which operates the only U.S. rare earths mine, last week agreed to a multibillion-dollar deal with the U.S. Department of Defense that will see the Pentagon become its largest shareholder.
- As part of the agreement, Apple will prepay MP $200 million for a supply of magnets slated to begin in 2027.
Cross Contamination
- Elon Musk ruled out a merger between Tesla and xAI but said he plans to hold a shareholder vote on investment in the artificial intelligence startup by the automaker, in the latest step to deepen integration across his business empire.
- $2 Billion of the $5 Billion share sale of xAI
- Tesla shareholders are now going to get a nice piece of Twitter (gigantically artificially overpriced) - JOY!
Sugar Sugar
- President Donald Trump said last Wednesday that Coca-Cola had agreed to use cane sugar in its beverages in the U.S. after his discussions with the company.
"I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
- Coca-Cola switched to High Fructose Corn Syrup in 1984 (Regan)
----Cane Sugar: Broken down into glucose and fructose in the body. Excessive intake is linked to obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic issues.
----Corn Syrup: Especially HFCS has been scrutinized for its potential role in increasing fat accumulation and insulin resistance, though research is ongoing and often debated.
-- Florida, Texas and Louisiana make up the majority of cane sugar
--------"Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar doesn’t make sense," said Corn Refiners Association President and CEO John Bode. "Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.”
- What shall we call it CokeCane?
----Coca-Cola on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations as strong demand in Europe offset weaker volume in other markets. STOCK DOWN
Dumb Run
- A man was gored and seven others lightly injured on Tuesday, the second day of Pamplona's San Fermin festival in which thousands of people line the mediaeval city's narrow streets for the centuries-old tradition of running with bulls.
- The man who was gored, identified only as being older than 25, was injured by a bull horn under his right armpit, a spokesperson for the city emergency services said.
New App by Dorsey
- Jack Dorsey spent the weekend building Bitchat, a new decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app that works entirely over Bluetooth mesh networks, with no internet, central servers, phone numbers or emails required.
- The Twitter co-founder announced Sunday that the beta version is live on TestFlight, with a full white paper available on GitHub.
- In a post on X Sunday, Dorsey called it a personal experiment in “bluetooth mesh networks, relays and store and forward models, message encryption models, and a few other things.”
Jack Dorsey Pic
M&A
- Chocolate maker Ferrero has agreed to buy cereal giant WK Kellogg in a deal valued at $3.1 billion, the companies announced Thursday.
- Shares of WK Kellogg soared 30% in premarket trading on the announcement.
Sad News
- Ozzy Osbourne, the wailing Black Sabbath singer-turned-solo act who took the “Crazy Train” from a bleak childhood in working-class Birmingham, England, to heavy metal stardom, has died.
- He was 76.
OH and..
- Genius Bill passes and is signed into law..
- Does anyone know why called genius Bill????
- HINT: Stablecoin big part of it...
Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?
Closest to The Pin for IBM (IBM)
Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!
FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS
See this week’s stock picks HERE
Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter
Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter
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