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DHUnplugged #786: All In A Weeks Work
Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia – USA is the world’s Cop again?
More .. Housing, Credit cards, Fannie and Freddie – all in week’s work..
Retail investors in control – don’t care about the noise.
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
- Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia - USA is the world's Cop again?
- More .. Housing, Credit cards, Fannie and Freddie - all in week's work..
- Retail investors in control - don't care about the noise
Markets
- DJIA plowing ahead - NASDAQ on fire - what can stop this?
- Nuclear stocks back in play
- Defense names on the move
- Interesting economic news.
FIRST
- President Donald Trump said drug “cartels are running Mexico,” and suggested the U.S. military could start land strikes against them there.
- The comments come on the heels of suggestions that Trump could take military action in Cuba and Colombia, and to annex Greenland.
- The Trump administration has reportedly carried out 35 known strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, killing 115 individuals.
- I will be going to Mexico later this week for a couple of days.....
Retail Ruling
- Retail traders have extended a buying spree into the new year, following a record-setting performance in 2025, with purchases in the first four trading days of January hitting the second-highest level in almost eight months.
- Individual investors have bought about $10.1 billion of US equities since the start of the year, mainly via exchange-traded funds, far exceeding the 12-month weekly average.
- Retail investors' confidence has helped stabilize markets during recent pullbacks, and if they keep snapping up equities, gains in the US stock market are likely to persist, according to analysts.
Employment Report
- 4.4% Unemployment Rate
- Nonfarm Payroll Employment: U.S. employers added +50,000 jobs in December 2025. This came in below economists' expectations (consensus around 60,000–73,000) and was a slowdown from the downwardly revised +56,000 in November.
- Unemployment Rate: Edged down slightly to 4.4% (from a revised 4.5% in November), contrary to forecasts of 4.5%. The number of unemployed people remained around 7.5 million, showing little change.
- Full-Year 2025 Performance: Total payroll growth for the year was just +584,000 jobs (average monthly gain of +49,000), marking one of the weakest years for hiring since 2020 (impacted by the pandemic). This is a sharp drop from +2.0 million added in 2024 (average +168,000 monthly).
-Revisions to Prior Months:
-- October 2025: Revised down to -173,000 (from -105,000, reflecting federal government buyouts and shutdown effects).
-- November 2025: Revised down by 8,000 to +56,000.
-- Combined October–November: 76,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.
GDP - HOT
- Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (voting FOMC member) on CNBC says it is very surprising how strong GDP growth is; says labor market is clearly cooling; says inflation still too high; has confidence housing inflation will trend down
- Q3 at +3.8% and Atlanta GDP NOW is predicting that Q4 will come in at +5.1%
More Eco
- Productivity (Prelim Q3): 4.9% vs. 2.5% consensus
- Productivity measures output per hour worked. A jump to 4.9% (almost double the consensus) suggests businesses are producing much more per labor hour than expected. Prior was revised up to 4.1% from 3.3%, so the trend is strengthening.
WOW! Unit Labor Costs (Prelim Q3): -1.9% vs. +0.8% consensus
- Unit labor costs measure labor cost per unit of output. A negative number means costs per unit are falling. Prior revised to -2.9% from +1.0%, so costs have been dropping sharply.
-Could be due to technology adoption, automation, or efficiency improvements.
Post-pandemic restructuring and leaner operations may have boosted output without adding labor.
OOOOOOOPS
- White House official says Truth Social disclosure of December jobs report was an "inadvertent release"; says White House will review protocols - CNBC
What next?
- President Donald Trump called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%, effective Jan. 20, without specifying details.
- Trump wrote on social media that the American Public will no longer be "ripped off" by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more.
- Maybe because of this: Hours before his message on Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, said on X: “Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from getting away with murder. Instead, he deregulated big banks charging up to 30% interest on credit cards.”
- BUT! Credit card companies will not be forced to issue credit - right? It will hurt people that need credit for business, personal or other needs.
Then there was this:
- Mortgage rates fell sharply on Friday, a day after President Donald Trump said on social media that he is instructing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds.
- “This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” he said in the Truth Social post.
- Still not clear where the money will come from and hot this actually works with the current structure of Fannie and Freddie
- Talk of Fannie/Freddie IPO?
--- Both are still still in conservatorship and book value per share still negative
- SO WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM?
OHHHHH - How about this
- 4PM browbeating for the Defense companies
- RTX was in the hotseat (as were others) taking the wrath of Pres Trump saying that they were basically fat and happy and ripping off the taxpayer
- No more dividends and no more buybacks was the call
- Stocks dropped 5% into the close and then more after
- 30 minutes later - conversation changed and the idea of a move from $1T in spending for the defense budget should move to $1.5T in 2027.
----- Where does that money come from?
- Stocks JUMPED!
Can't Ignore this
- Trump suggesting that Corporations and institutional investors cannot buy single family homes
- “People live in homes, not corporations,” he said.
- The argument is that corporate ownership has helped push housing further out of reach for everyday Americans.
- It is for that reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it.
- Invitation Homes, which is the largest renter of single-family homes in the country, tumbled 6%. Shares of Blackstone, an investing firm that owns and rents single-family homes, dropped more than 5%. Private equity firm Apollo Global Management also declined over 5%.
Then there is this...
- DOJ putting he screws to Powell
- The Trump administration has ramped up its pressure campaign on the U.S. central bank, threatening to indict Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over comments he made to Congress about a building renovation project, prompting the Fed chief to call the move a "pretext" to gain more influence over the ?setting of interest rates.
- The latest development in a long-running effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to push the Fed to dramatically lower rates had immediate fallout in Washington and on global markets.
- Powell came out with a video over the weekend.
- Initially futures were down <1% - market opened all all ok...
With all of that....
- What are we not seeing any news about?
- EPSTEIN FILES
Nuclear back in Front
- Meta Platforms Inc. is set to become one of the world’s biggest corporate buyers of nuclear power, striking a series of deals to purchase electricity from existing plants and support new reactor projects.
- The agreements could end up totaling more than 6 gigawatts — that’s enough to power a city of about 5 million homes. The deals include purchasing electricity from three existing Vistra Corp. plants and support several small reactors that Sam Altman-backed Oklo Inc. and Bill Gates-backed TerraPower LLC are planning to build over the next decade.
- Still most of these SMR companies are speculative at best as they have not actually powered anything and have no revenue - YET.
Greenland - Where are we on this?
- Bribe the Greenlanders?
- Military action?
- Buy from Denmark?
xAI News
- Grok - seems to be coming along - been using it more lately
- XAI reported a net loss of $1.46 billion for the September quarter, up from $1 billion in the first quarter, according to internal documents.
- The company spent $7.8 billion in cash in the first nine months of the year, and its goal is to build AI that is self-sufficient and will eventually power humanoid robots like Optimus.
- XAI revenue nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter to $107 million for the three month period ended Sept. 30, 2025, according to financial documents shared with investors and reviewed by Bloomberg.
- From Grok: Worth $230 BILLION after the last money raise of $20 BILLION
- Also from Grok; Real value is probably around $40-$80 billion is valued on fundamentals - the market of $230 Billion is moonshot hype.
GM Next
- GM's $6 billion charge linked to EV investment reduction
- Most of the writedown tied to supplier payouts for canceled work
- GM is latest automaker to walk back EV plans after federal policy changes
- - This is a bad way to do business - Governmenet policy changes quickly
Apple and Google
- Apple is teaming up with Google to use Gemini models for an AI-powered Siri
- Reports swirled in August that Apple was in early talks the search giant to use a custom Gemini model to power a new iteration of Siri.
- Apple has mostly stood on the sidelines of the AI frenzy that’s swept up Wall Street since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
- Google now market cap > $4T
- - Sooooooo Apple is not going to come up with their own AI
Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?
ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE
THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN 2025
Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!
CTP CUP 2025 Participants:
Jim Beaver
Mike Kazmierczak
Joe Metzger
Ken Degel
David Martin
Dean Wormell
Neil Larion
Mary Lou Schwarzer
Eric Harvey (2024 Winner)
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
416416 ratings
Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia – USA is the world’s Cop again?
More .. Housing, Credit cards, Fannie and Freddie – all in week’s work..
Retail investors in control – don’t care about the noise.
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
- Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia - USA is the world's Cop again?
- More .. Housing, Credit cards, Fannie and Freddie - all in week's work..
- Retail investors in control - don't care about the noise
Markets
- DJIA plowing ahead - NASDAQ on fire - what can stop this?
- Nuclear stocks back in play
- Defense names on the move
- Interesting economic news.
FIRST
- President Donald Trump said drug “cartels are running Mexico,” and suggested the U.S. military could start land strikes against them there.
- The comments come on the heels of suggestions that Trump could take military action in Cuba and Colombia, and to annex Greenland.
- The Trump administration has reportedly carried out 35 known strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, killing 115 individuals.
- I will be going to Mexico later this week for a couple of days.....
Retail Ruling
- Retail traders have extended a buying spree into the new year, following a record-setting performance in 2025, with purchases in the first four trading days of January hitting the second-highest level in almost eight months.
- Individual investors have bought about $10.1 billion of US equities since the start of the year, mainly via exchange-traded funds, far exceeding the 12-month weekly average.
- Retail investors' confidence has helped stabilize markets during recent pullbacks, and if they keep snapping up equities, gains in the US stock market are likely to persist, according to analysts.
Employment Report
- 4.4% Unemployment Rate
- Nonfarm Payroll Employment: U.S. employers added +50,000 jobs in December 2025. This came in below economists' expectations (consensus around 60,000–73,000) and was a slowdown from the downwardly revised +56,000 in November.
- Unemployment Rate: Edged down slightly to 4.4% (from a revised 4.5% in November), contrary to forecasts of 4.5%. The number of unemployed people remained around 7.5 million, showing little change.
- Full-Year 2025 Performance: Total payroll growth for the year was just +584,000 jobs (average monthly gain of +49,000), marking one of the weakest years for hiring since 2020 (impacted by the pandemic). This is a sharp drop from +2.0 million added in 2024 (average +168,000 monthly).
-Revisions to Prior Months:
-- October 2025: Revised down to -173,000 (from -105,000, reflecting federal government buyouts and shutdown effects).
-- November 2025: Revised down by 8,000 to +56,000.
-- Combined October–November: 76,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.
GDP - HOT
- Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (voting FOMC member) on CNBC says it is very surprising how strong GDP growth is; says labor market is clearly cooling; says inflation still too high; has confidence housing inflation will trend down
- Q3 at +3.8% and Atlanta GDP NOW is predicting that Q4 will come in at +5.1%
More Eco
- Productivity (Prelim Q3): 4.9% vs. 2.5% consensus
- Productivity measures output per hour worked. A jump to 4.9% (almost double the consensus) suggests businesses are producing much more per labor hour than expected. Prior was revised up to 4.1% from 3.3%, so the trend is strengthening.
WOW! Unit Labor Costs (Prelim Q3): -1.9% vs. +0.8% consensus
- Unit labor costs measure labor cost per unit of output. A negative number means costs per unit are falling. Prior revised to -2.9% from +1.0%, so costs have been dropping sharply.
-Could be due to technology adoption, automation, or efficiency improvements.
Post-pandemic restructuring and leaner operations may have boosted output without adding labor.
OOOOOOOPS
- White House official says Truth Social disclosure of December jobs report was an "inadvertent release"; says White House will review protocols - CNBC
What next?
- President Donald Trump called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%, effective Jan. 20, without specifying details.
- Trump wrote on social media that the American Public will no longer be "ripped off" by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more.
- Maybe because of this: Hours before his message on Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, said on X: “Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from getting away with murder. Instead, he deregulated big banks charging up to 30% interest on credit cards.”
- BUT! Credit card companies will not be forced to issue credit - right? It will hurt people that need credit for business, personal or other needs.
Then there was this:
- Mortgage rates fell sharply on Friday, a day after President Donald Trump said on social media that he is instructing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds.
- “This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” he said in the Truth Social post.
- Still not clear where the money will come from and hot this actually works with the current structure of Fannie and Freddie
- Talk of Fannie/Freddie IPO?
--- Both are still still in conservatorship and book value per share still negative
- SO WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM?
OHHHHH - How about this
- 4PM browbeating for the Defense companies
- RTX was in the hotseat (as were others) taking the wrath of Pres Trump saying that they were basically fat and happy and ripping off the taxpayer
- No more dividends and no more buybacks was the call
- Stocks dropped 5% into the close and then more after
- 30 minutes later - conversation changed and the idea of a move from $1T in spending for the defense budget should move to $1.5T in 2027.
----- Where does that money come from?
- Stocks JUMPED!
Can't Ignore this
- Trump suggesting that Corporations and institutional investors cannot buy single family homes
- “People live in homes, not corporations,” he said.
- The argument is that corporate ownership has helped push housing further out of reach for everyday Americans.
- It is for that reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it.
- Invitation Homes, which is the largest renter of single-family homes in the country, tumbled 6%. Shares of Blackstone, an investing firm that owns and rents single-family homes, dropped more than 5%. Private equity firm Apollo Global Management also declined over 5%.
Then there is this...
- DOJ putting he screws to Powell
- The Trump administration has ramped up its pressure campaign on the U.S. central bank, threatening to indict Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over comments he made to Congress about a building renovation project, prompting the Fed chief to call the move a "pretext" to gain more influence over the ?setting of interest rates.
- The latest development in a long-running effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to push the Fed to dramatically lower rates had immediate fallout in Washington and on global markets.
- Powell came out with a video over the weekend.
- Initially futures were down <1% - market opened all all ok...
With all of that....
- What are we not seeing any news about?
- EPSTEIN FILES
Nuclear back in Front
- Meta Platforms Inc. is set to become one of the world’s biggest corporate buyers of nuclear power, striking a series of deals to purchase electricity from existing plants and support new reactor projects.
- The agreements could end up totaling more than 6 gigawatts — that’s enough to power a city of about 5 million homes. The deals include purchasing electricity from three existing Vistra Corp. plants and support several small reactors that Sam Altman-backed Oklo Inc. and Bill Gates-backed TerraPower LLC are planning to build over the next decade.
- Still most of these SMR companies are speculative at best as they have not actually powered anything and have no revenue - YET.
Greenland - Where are we on this?
- Bribe the Greenlanders?
- Military action?
- Buy from Denmark?
xAI News
- Grok - seems to be coming along - been using it more lately
- XAI reported a net loss of $1.46 billion for the September quarter, up from $1 billion in the first quarter, according to internal documents.
- The company spent $7.8 billion in cash in the first nine months of the year, and its goal is to build AI that is self-sufficient and will eventually power humanoid robots like Optimus.
- XAI revenue nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter to $107 million for the three month period ended Sept. 30, 2025, according to financial documents shared with investors and reviewed by Bloomberg.
- From Grok: Worth $230 BILLION after the last money raise of $20 BILLION
- Also from Grok; Real value is probably around $40-$80 billion is valued on fundamentals - the market of $230 Billion is moonshot hype.
GM Next
- GM's $6 billion charge linked to EV investment reduction
- Most of the writedown tied to supplier payouts for canceled work
- GM is latest automaker to walk back EV plans after federal policy changes
- - This is a bad way to do business - Governmenet policy changes quickly
Apple and Google
- Apple is teaming up with Google to use Gemini models for an AI-powered Siri
- Reports swirled in August that Apple was in early talks the search giant to use a custom Gemini model to power a new iteration of Siri.
- Apple has mostly stood on the sidelines of the AI frenzy that’s swept up Wall Street since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
- Google now market cap > $4T
- - Sooooooo Apple is not going to come up with their own AI
Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?
ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE
THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN 2025
Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!
CTP CUP 2025 Participants:
Jim Beaver
Mike Kazmierczak
Joe Metzger
Ken Degel
David Martin
Dean Wormell
Neil Larion
Mary Lou Schwarzer
Eric Harvey (2024 Winner)
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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