DHUnplugged Podcast

DHUnplugged Podcast

By Andrew Horowitz and JC DvorakBusinessNewsInvestingBusiness NewsCareers
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DHUnplugged Podcast episodes

  • DHUnplugged #792: Disrupter < Disrupters
    DOD - Disrupter Disrupters
    China markets reopening after Lunar New Year
    Mexico Cartel Wars
    Refunds requested for the illegal tariffs
    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
    - The CTP for Caterpillar announced
    - DOD - Disrupter Disrupters
    - China markets reopening after Lunar New Year
    - Mexico Cartel Wars (Jalisco)
    Markets
    - Mortgage Rates - looking good!
    - Tariffs found illegal - that is not stopping anything
    - Refunds requested for the illegal tariffs
    - Monday's big drop and AI taking a bite out of stock prices
    Tariffs
    - First, who actually knows what is going on. 100% chaos
    - Supreme court ruled illegal (6-3)
    - 10% flat across all countries immediately added
    - Wait a day and make that 15%
    - FedEx seeks refund for illegal IEEPA tariffs imposed by Trump after the Supreme Court ruled Trump's tariffs exceeded authority
    - Numerous lawsuits expected for IEEPA tariff refunds
    - Apple has spent more than $3 billion on tariffs since President Donald Trump enacted his trade policies. What about that? (HOW TO FIGURE OUT WHO GETS THE REFUND)
    --- Estimate that $175B tariffs have been collected alreay
    - A group of 22 U.S. Senate Democrats on Monday introduced legislation that would require President Donald Trump's administration to fully refund within 180 days all of the revenue, with interest, collected from tariffs struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
    - The legislation would require the Customs and Border Protection agency, which collects tariffs at U.S. ports of entry, to prioritize small businesses.
    - The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said it will halt collections of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT) on Tuesday
    Stop The Presses
    - After years of JCD's rants.......
    - Apple will soon introduce MacBooks with touch screens
    - Apple Inc.'s initial touch Macs will have the Dynamic Island at the center top of the display and OLED screen technology.
    The new MacBook Pro models will have a refreshed, dynamic user interface that can shift between being optimized for touch or point-and-click input.
    Europe Reacts
    - "The current situation is not conducive to delivering 'fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial' transatlantic trade and investment, as agreed to by both sides" in the joint statement setting out the terms of last year's trade agreement, the Commission said. "A deal is a deal."
    - All active discussions are halted on any USA/Europe trade deal
    The Potential Winners
    - Brazil and China may be the winners here
    - Chinese President Xi Jinping has a boost in bargaining power after the US Supreme Court invalidated Donald Trump's broad emergency tariffs, a key point of leverage over China.
    - The removal of tariff threats will make it harder for Trump to press Xi for larger purchases of certain products and leaves him without a key weapon to strike back if Chinese negotiators make fresh demands.
    - Xi's team will likely push harder for access to advanced semiconductors, the removal of trade restrictions on Chinese companies, and reduced US support for self-ruled Taiwan, according to Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University's Center for American Studies.
    NVDA Earnings
    - NVIDIA drops its fiscal Q4 2026 (ended Jan 2025) results tomorrow—another make-or-break moment for the AI trade.
    - The bar is sky-high after years of blowout beats, but whispers of "peak AI" and slowing growth momentum have investors on edge.
    --- Consensus Expectations :
    ----Revenue: ~$65.6–$66.1 billion (up ~67–68% YoY from last year's ~$39B; guided $65B ±2% in prior report)
    ------EPS (adjusted/non-GAAP): ~$1.50–$1.53 (up ~70–72% YoY from $0.89).
    --------Gross margins: Targeting ~75% non-GAAP (holding strong despite supply chain noise).
    -----------Key driver: Data Center segment expected to crush ~$58–$60B, fueled by Blackwell ramp and hyperscaler spend.
    Home Depot Earnings
    - The home-improvement retailer gained 2.7% after posting fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.72 per share on revenues of $38.20 billion.
    - That exceeded the per-share earnings of $2.54 on revenues of $38.12 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
    AMD News
    - The semiconductor maker rose about 11% after it inked a multiyear deal with Meta to lend up to 6 gigawatts of its graphics processing units to artificial intelligence data centers.
    - The cost of the deal is unclear, but the companies’ agreement includes a a performance-based warrant that could amount to up to 160 million of AMD shares, according to a statement dated Tuesday.
    - Meta has committed to deploying up to 6 gigawatts (GW) of AMD's Instinct GPUs (high-end graphics processing units optimized for AI workloads) to power its massive AI data centers.
    - Analysts estimate the GPU portion alone could be worth $60–$100+ billion over 5+ years
    Mortgage Rates
    - The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 5.99% on Monday, according to Mortgage News Daily, matching its lowest levels since 2022.
    - Last year at this time the rate was 6.89%.
    - A buyer putting 20% down on the median priced home, about $400,000 according to the National Association of Realtors, would have a monthly payment of $1,916 for the principal and interest. One year ago, that payment would have been $2,105, a difference of $189.
    Life Insurance Record
    - Manulife Financial Corp. sold a $300 million life insurance policy in Singapore, topping what Guinness World Records certified as the most valuable policy ever issued.
    - The policy surpasses the previous record of $250 million, set by HSBC Life in Hong Kong in 2024. Manulife said in a statement Tuesday that the deal reflects growing demand from ultra-wealthy clients to preserve their assets.
    - In Singapore over the past 12 months, Manulife has issued 25 individual policies each worth more than $50 million.
    Bitcoin Rout
    - Gemini said it was axing as much as a quarter of its staff and exiting the UK, European Union and Australia entirely.
    - This week, it parted with its chief operating officer, chief financial officer and chief legal officer, all in a single day.
    - Its stock has fallen more than 80% from a post-listing high last year, collapsing its market value from a peak of almost $4 billion to under $700 million.
    Over the Greenland
    - USA sending a "hospital ship" over
    - Trump's post on the ship came hours after Denmark's Joint Arctic Command said it had evacuated a crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenlandic waters, seven nautical miles outside of Greenland's capital, Nuuk.
    - Greenland said thanks but no thanks
    So Long!
    - U.S. investors are pulling money out of their own stock market at the fastest pace in at least 16 years as Big Tech returns fade and better-performing overseas markets look more attractive.
    - In the last six months, U.S.-domiciled investors have pulled some $75 billion from U.S. equity products, with $52 billion flowing out since the start of 2026 alone, the most in the first eight weeks of the year since at least 2010
    AI Disruption - DOD (Disruption of Disrupters)
    - CrowdStrike -9.8% and other cybersecurity names under heavy pressure again as AI disruption fears build following Anthropic’s Claude Code release
    - - Cybersecurity stocks are under broad pressure today, extending recent weakness following Friday's launch of Claude Code Security by Anthropic. Claude Code Security scans codebases for vulnerabilities and suggests software patches for human review, fueling a narrative that AI platforms may be moving more quickly into parts of the security workflow than investors had previously expected.
    For cybersecurity, that raises concern around the forward demand outlook and competitive positioning, particularly in areas tied to application security, cloud security, identity workflows, and security operations automation, where AI-native tools could start to narrow perceived differentiation.
    - The move suggests investors are still sorting through the implications for product overlap, pricing power, and competitive positioning as AI capabilities evolve quickly.
    - IBM shares dropping toward lows of the session; attributed to news that Claude can automate cobol modernization
    COBOL
    (Common Business-Oriented Language) is a high-level, English-like programming language created in 1959 for business, finance, and administrative data processing. It is renowned for its verbosity, readability, and reliability, processing massive amounts of transactions on mainframe systems,, notes NetCom Learning and IBM. Despite being decades old, it remains critical in banking, insurance, and government sectors.
    - It is estimated that 70-80% of the world's business transactions are processed by COBOL
    Grok's Prediction about Future of OpenAi/ChatGPT
    Scenario
    Likelihood (My Estimate)
    Key Factors
    Outcome for OpenAI/ChatGPT
    Thriving Leader
    Medium (40%)
    Sustained breakthroughs, partnerships (e.g., Microsoft), regulatory wins
    OpenAI as AI giant; ChatGPT as ecosystem hub for agents/robots
    Evolved Survivor
    High (50%)
    Adaptation to agents/hardware; mergers
    Exists but rebranded; ChatGPT integrated into daily life tools
    Decline/Acquisition
    Low (10%)
    Overcompetition, funding collapse
    Absorbed or legacy; ChatGPT commoditized or obsolete
    Quick check on Europe Shares
    - European company earnings growth is picking up this reporting season against a tentatively improving economic backdrop, but wary investors are demanding more than solid results to justify sky-high valuations.
    - Companies representing 57% of Europe's market capitalization have reported so far,...
    1 hr 1 min
  • DHUnplugged #791: AI Overload
    Self Created Valuation Boosts
    Apple Announces new Podcast push
    AI - A breakdown
    Playing them like a fiddle - Warner Brothers
    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
    - A NEW CTP just announced
    - China releasing new AI models
    - AI - A breakdown - we are on overload
    - Big Employment news....
    Markets
    - Self Created Valuation Boosts
    - Apple Announces new Podcast push
    - Playing them like a fiddle - Warner Brothers
    Quick Note - Going to rip up the playbook on something this week on TDI Podcast. Anyone who owns an annuity should listen to what is about to come on next Sundays show..... 
    No Agenda...
    Olympics - Anything to discuss?
    MONEY FOR ALL
    - The average tax refund is 10.9% higher so far this season, compared to about the same point in 2025, according to early filing data from the IRS.
    - The 2026 tax season opened Jan. 26, and the average refund amount was $2,290 as of Feb. 6, up from $2,065 about one year prior, the IRS reported Friday night.
    - As of Feb. 6, the total amount refunded was more than $16.9 billion, up 1.9% compared to last year, according to the IRS release. That figure reflects current-year returns only.
    - This is partly because there were excess-witholdings from last year on the rules changed and paycheck withholdings were not adjusted. This is a one time situation..
    Emplyment
    - 4.3%
    - "Better" than expected payrolls number
    - A major revision was released last Wednesday. Overall 2025 job growth was much weaker than initially reported. The total net change for the full year 2025 was revised down from +584,000 jobs to just +181,000 jobs (seasonally adjusted) — an average of only about 15,000 jobs added per month instead of ~49,000. This made 2025 one of the weakest years for job creation in recent non-recession periods.
    - Employment levels were consistently overstated throughout 2025 by roughly 800,000 to over 1 million jobs, peaking around mid-year. For example:
    By March 2025, the level was revised down by 898,000.
    By December 2025 (preliminary), down by 1,029,000.
    - Monthly changes were also adjusted downward in most cases (e.g., August's originally reported -26,000 became a larger loss of -70,000; September's +108,000 became +76,000).
    - The revisions reflect normal annual benchmarking, but this one was unusually large (larger than the typical 0.2% average over the prior decade), likely due to factors like overestimation of business births or other data mismatches.
    - In short, the data reveals that the U.S. labor market in 2025 was significantly softer than the monthly headlines suggested at the time — job growth was overstated by a substantial margin, painting a picture of a much weaker employment picture for the year.
    AI Updates
    - While U.S. markets have been focused on the impact of Anthropic and Altruist’s tools on software and financial services, China’s tech giants have released AI models this week that have shown advancements in robotics and video generation.
    - Google is reporting that China's AI models are just MONTHS behind western models
    - However - is this progress? In a video demo, Alibaba showed a robot with pincers for hands that appeared to be able to count oranges, pick them up and place them in a basket. It was also shown taking milk out of a fridge.
    - Alibaba on Monday unveiled a new artificial intelligence model Qwen 3.5 designed to execute complex tasks independently, with big improvements in performance and cost that the Chinese tech giant claims beat major U.S. rival models on several benchmarks.
    - Zhipu AI — which trades as Knowledge Atlas Technology in Hong Kong said the model approaches Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in coding benchmarks while surpassing Google’s Gemini 3 Pro on some tests.
    - Shares of MiniMax also jumped Thursday after it launched its updated M2.5 open-source model with enhanced AI agent tools.
    Grok Update
    - Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, has been gaining ground in the U.S. over the past months, data showed, even as it draws global censure and regulatory scrutiny after being used to generate a wave of non-consensual sexualized images of women and minors.
    - U.S. market share of the tool rose to 17.8% last month from 14% in December, and 1.9% in January 2025, according to data from research firm Apptopia.
    - Men are still the largest % users of Grok ~ 78% (down from 89% in April 2025)
    AI Market Share
    - ChatGPT's share slumped to 52.9% last month from 80.9% in January last year, while Gemini's grew to 29.4% from 17.3% over the same period.
    AI Market Share
    InfoGrapic and AI Understanding
    - Have we gone through this?
    - At its core, AI is technology that lets machines perform tasks that normally require human intelligence — things like understanding language, recognizing images, making decisions, or solving problems.
    - Modern AI (especially since ~2022) is dominated by machine learning — systems that learn patterns from huge amounts of data instead of being explicitly programmed rule-by-rule.
    - Inference is the "using" or "applying" phase of AI — when a trained model takes new input and produces an output / prediction / answer.
    Contrast with training (the "learning" phase):
    ------ Training ? Like a student studying for years: very compute-heavy, expensive, done once (or rarely) on massive servers/GPUs, adjusts billions of parameters based on examples.
    ------ Inference ? Like the student taking a test or doing their job: much faster, cheaper, runs on your phone/laptop/cloud, uses the fixed knowledge from training to respond instantly.
    - gentic AI takes regular AI (like chat models) to the next level: instead of just answering questions or generating text, these systems act autonomously to achieve goals with minimal human help.
    "Agentic" comes from "agency" — the ability to make decisions, plan, use tools, take actions, adapt, and even learn from results — like a smart digital employee rather than just a smart answer machine.
    AI Infographic
    Last AI Item
    - A shortage of memory chips is hammering profits, derailing corporate plans, and inflating price tags on various products, with the crunch expected to get worse.
    - The fundamental reason for the squeeze is the buildout of AI data centers, with companies like Alphabet and OpenAI buying up large shares of memory chip production, leaving consumer electronics producers fighting over a dwindling supply.
    - The resulting price spikes are causing concern, with some warning of "RAMmageddon" and others predicting that memory chip prices will go "parabolic", bringing lavish profits to some companies but painful prices to the rest of the electronics sector.
    Here is something:
    - Gallup will no longer track presidential approval ratings after nearly 90 years
    - Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the Washington, DC-based management company began tracking the president's job performance 88 years ago.
    - Gallup told USA TODAY it will no longer publish "favorability ratings of political figures," a decision it said "reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership."
    - Gallup said the ratings are now "widely produced, aggregated and interpreted, and no longer represent an area where Gallup can make its most distinctive contribution."
    - "Our commitment is to long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives," the company wrote, adding that its work will continue through the Gallup Poll Social Series, the Gallup Quarterly Business Review, the World Poll and more.
    - Seems like they are unable to SHAPE opinion due to social media etc.....?
    Apple Podcast Update
    - Big news!
    - Apple on Monday announced that it will bring a new integrated video podcast experience to Apple Podcasts this spring.
    - The move comes as video viewership continues to reshape podcasting. About 37% of people over age 12 watch video podcasts monthly, according to Edison Research.
    - The update brings Apple Podcasts more in-line with its competitors Spotify, YouTube and now Netflix, which have increasingly leaned into video podcasting.
    -“Twenty years ago, Apple helped take podcasting mainstream by adding podcasts to iTunes, and more than a decade ago, we introduced the dedicated Apple Podcasts app,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services, in a statement. “
    - By bringing a category-leading video experience to Apple Podcasts, we’re putting creators in full control of their content and how they build their businesses, while making it easier than ever for audiences to listen to or watch podcasts.”
    M&A
    - Texas Instruments Inc. has reached an agreement to buy Silicon Laboratories Inc. for about $7.5 billion, deepening its exposure to several markets for chips.
    - Silicon Labs investors will receive $231 in cash for each share of the company’s common stock and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
    - The transaction still needs to win approval by investors in Silicon Labs and shares of Silicon Labs surged by 51% to $206.48 after the announcement.
    Inflation - This helps
    - PepsiCo, will cut prices on core brands such as Lay's and Doritos by up to 15% following a consumer backlash against several previous price hikes, the snacks and beverage maker said on Tuesday after it topped fourth-quarter results.
    Miran - Moving
    - Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran is leaving his post as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, CNBC has confirmed.
    - He joined the CEA in January 2025, but had been on leave from that post since last September when he filled the unexpired term of former Fed Governor Adriana Kugler.- He reamins on Fed board
    No Biggie????
    ...
    1 hr 11 min
  • DHUnplugged #790: Hang On!
    Silver, Gold and Crypto (oh my)
    Hang on - Wild ride here
    Superbowl, Olympics- Wait until you hear about the CAPex spending!
    Shakeup in Dietville
    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
    - Silver, Gold and Crypto (oh my)
    - Need a stock for CTP
    - Hang on - Wild ride here
    - Superbowl, Olympics- Wait until you hear about the CAPex spending!
    - Shakeup in Dietville
    Markets
    - Massive moved during the week -
    - Bitcoin clipped $60k before rebounding
    - DJIA tops 50,000 for the first time
    - Wait until you hear about the CAPex spending!
    - CAT == 1,100 points on the DJIA in 2026
    Superbowl and Superbowl ads
    - Game review
    - Any ad stick out?
    - $10M per ad this year
    - Half Time with Bad Bunny?
    - Anthropic busting on OpenAi
    Last Week!
    - Massive moved - quick calc showed that about $1T was wiped from market caps in the sell-off, particularly in tech names.
    - HOWEVER - Friday alone is estimated to have added $1.5T to market cap
    AI Ripping Through
    - Plenty of names getting cooked over AI announcements
    - First it was the software companies
    - Now there are names in legal and finance that got clocked
    - Today - Altruist.ai can do tax planning and that hurt companies in financial space
    Earnings Season Update
    - Reporting so far: 59% of S&P 500 companies have reported Q4 2025 results.
    - Beat rate: 76% have topped EPS estimates (vs. 5-yr average: 78% (slightly lower) vs. 10-yr average: 76% (in line)
    - Magnitude of beats (aggregate): earnings are 7.6% above estimates vs. 5-yr average: 7.7% (about the same) vs. 10-yr average: 7.0% (a bit better)
    - Nothing great,  like Goldilocks
    Earnings Highlights
    - Palantir (PLTR): Reported strong Q4 results early in the week , beating estimates with revenue ~$1.41B (vs. ~$1.33B expected) and EPS $0.25 (vs. $0.23). Guidance for 2026 was upbeat (~61% revenue growth). Shares rallied sharply initially (~7–11% post-earnings), but gave back some gains amid broader tech volatility (e.g., down ~11–22% in parts of the week from peaks).
    - AMD: Reported mid-week, beating EPS (~$1.53 vs. lower expectations) with solid data center growth (~39%). However, Q1 guidance disappointed relative to high expectations in the AI chip space. Shares sank dramatically — down ~15–17% the next day, with some reports noting up to 20%+ drops at points, contributing to broader chip sector pressure.
    - Alphabet (GOOGL/GOOG): Reported beating on revenue (~$113.8B) and EPS (~$2.82), with strong core performance. But capex guidance for 2026 ($175–$185B, roughly double prior levels) sparked AI spending worries. Shares dipped post-earnings (down ~0.5–5% initially, flat to lower the next day, with some volatility pulling it below key moving averages).
    - Amazon (AMZN): Reported after hours on February 5, with mixed results — EPS ~$1.95 (narrow miss vs. ~$1.97 expected), but solid overall. The big negative was a surprise $200B capex forecast for 2026 (well above expectations), tied to AI/cloud buildout. Shares plunged sharply — down ~7–10% in after-hours/extended trading, with Friday moves around -5–8% in some sessions.
    Recent Tech CAPEX announcements
    - Amazon (AMZN) — Guided to approximately $200 billion in capex for 2026 (a massive jump from ~$125–131 billion in 2025, with ~80% likely AI-related per analyst commentary). This was the largest single-company figure and a major surprise, contributing heavily to the week's "wild" reactions.
    - Alphabet (GOOGL/GOOG) — Guided to $175–185 billion in capex for 2026 (roughly double the $91 billion spent in 2025, far above analyst expectations of ~$115–119 billion). Emphasis was on AI compute capacity, servers, data centers, and networking to meet demand for Gemini and cloud services.
    - Meta Platforms (META) — Guidance from late January (but heavily discussed last week): $115–135 billion for 2026 (up significantly from ~$70–72 billion in 2025, potentially an ~87% increase).
    - Microsoft (MSFT) — No new full explicit 2026 guidance in early February (fiscal year runs July–June), but recent quarterly run-rate and analyst projections put it around $97–145 billion (with some sources citing ~$105 billion or higher based on Q2 spending trends and signals of continued growth from prior levels of ~$88 billion in FY2025).
    ------!!!!Combined 2026 capex projected at $635–665 billion (low/high ends) or up to $650–700 billion in some reports — a ~60–74% increase from their collective ~$381 billion in 2025.
    Market Reaction from all of this....
    - Markets were a bit spooked on the Anthropic announcement earlier in the week - software sold off and set a sour mood
    - Microsoft dumped pretty hard as the amount of spend was higher than anticipated, especially with some slower growth in Azure.
    - Amazon took a beating on the increased spend they anticipate *(extra by $50B)
    - BUT: Friday markets rallied as there was realization that the $200B spend by Amazon would seep into the economy and fuel infrastructure spending along with chips, tech etc.
    Other Earnings of Interest
    -  Reddit reported fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday in which the social media company beat on the top and bottom lines.
    - The company said it expects first-quarter sales to come in the range of $595 million to $605 million, which is higher than Wall Street expectations of $577 million.
    - Reddit also announced a $1 billion share repurchase program.
    - Reddit gets about $250 million a year from OpenAi and Google to have your data for training their LLMs
    While we are on the subject
    - Friday, DJIA hit 50,000 - first time ever!
    - Up 1,200 point of which approx 350 was from caterpillar and 280 was from Goldman Sachs
    Hats off to WalMart
    - Walmart Inc. shares pushed its market capitalization past $1 trillion on Tuesday for the first time ever|
    - Big transformation over the pst year - Walmart has maintained its appeal to households looking for value, its online offerings are drawing new, wealthier shoppers seeking convenience.
    Google Bond Offering
    - Issuing several tranches of bonds, denominated in Stirling - one as long as 100 years
    - Would you buy that?
    - The Google parent is set to raise $20 billion from a US dollar bond offering on Monday — more than the $15 billion initially expected — and is also pitching investors on what would be its first ever offerings in Switzerland and the UK.
    - The latter would include a rare sale of 100-year bonds, the first time a tech company has tried such an offering since the dotcom frenzy of the late 1990s
    Fat Profits in Dietville
    - Really interesting sequence of events happening...
    - Hims launches compounded pill at prices as low as $49 per month
    - Analysts cite questions on efficacy, legality of pill
    - Hims' move shifts focus from Novo's strong Wegovy pill launch
    - Broader obesity market whipsawed as pricing pressure rises
    THEN..
    - Hims and Hers Health shares dive 14% after hours on Friday (Down 25% on Monday)
    - FDA cites concerns over quality, safety, federal law
    - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it would take action against telehealth provider Hims & Hers, for its $49 weight-loss pill, including restricting access to the drug's ingredients and referring the company to the Department of Justice for potential violations of federal law.
    AND....
    - Eli Lilly last Wednesday posted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue and 2026 guidance that blew past estimates, as demand for its blockbuster weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro soars.
    - The pharmaceutical giant anticipates its 2026 revenue will come in between $80 billion and $83 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $77.62 billion, according to LSEG.
    - Meanwhile, NOVO had a really bad outlook that took the shares down 13% after the report.
    Japan Markets Soar
    - Japanese stocks jumped to a record high Monday, leading gains in the region after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi won a landmark election victory.
    - The ruling Liberal Democratic Party captured a two-thirds supermajority in the 465-seat lower house, public broadcaster NHK reported.
    - Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped past 57,000 for the first time before paring gains to close 3.9% higher at 56,363.94, while the Topix also notched a record high, closing at 3,783.94, up 2.3%.
    Employment Report?
    - Government shutdown is forcing them to postpone again (Which is dumb)
    - Number due this Wednesday
    - Maybe because of this:U.S. employers announced 108,435 layoffs for the month, up 118% from the same period a year ago and 205% from December 2025. The total marked the highest for any January since 2009.
    - At the same time, companies announced just 5,306 new hires, also the lowest January since 2009, which is when Challenger, Gray & Christmas began tracking such data.
    - Also, job openings fell sharply in December to 6.54 million, to their lowest since September 2020. - Available jobs are down by more than 900,000 just since October.
    - NO! Ai and advancements in tech have noting to do with this! NO NO NO
    M&A
    - Texas Instruments Inc. has reached an agreement to buy Silicon Laboratories Inc. for about $7.5 billion, deepening its exposure to several markets for chips.
    - Silicon Labs investors will receive $231 in cash for each share of the company’s common stock and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
    - The transaction still needs to win approval by investors in Silicon Labs and shares of Silicon Labs surged by 51% to $206.48 after the announcement.
    Inflation - This helps
    - PepsiCo (PEP.O), opens new tab will cut prices on core brands such as Lay's and Doritos by up to 15% following a consumer backlash against several previous price hike
    1 hr 7 min
  • DHUnplugged #789: Crash Test For Dummies

    WORST DAY EVER for SILVER

    Cold Snap in Florida – Massive Critter Drop

    New Fed Chair named

    Pausing on space

    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

    - WORST DAY EVER for SILVER
    - Cold Snap in Florida - Massive Critter Drop
    - New Fed Chair named
    - Pausing on space

    Markets

    - Bitcoin plunges - Crypto "winter"
    - Deep dive into January economic results
    - USD rises from multi-month low - EM still powered ahead
    - ELON - PT Barnum move

    Cold Snap

    - On February 1, 2026, Florida faced a significant drop in temperatures, reaching a record low of 24°F (-4°C) in Orlando. This marked the lowest temperature recorded in February since 1923.
    - Iguanas dropping from tress all over the streets
    - Iguanas can survive temperatures down to the mid-40s Fahrenheit (around 7°C) by entering a "cold-stunned" state, where they appear dead but are just temporarily paralyzed and immobile; however, prolonged exposure to temperatures in the 30s and 40s, especially below freezing, can be lethal, particularly for smaller individuals, leading to tissue damage and organ failure.
    - They get sluggish below 50°F (10°C) and fall from trees as they lose grip.
    - The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) issued Executive Order 26-03 on Friday, allowing residents to collect and surrender cold-stunned green iguanas without a permit during an unprecedented cold weather event.

    Right on Schedule

    - Remember we talked about how the Nat Gas price was going to reverse, just as quickly as it spikeed?
    - Nat gas down 25% today - down about 28% from recent high
    - Still about 50% higher than it was before the spike.

    THIS!

    - Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said the company’s proposed $100 billion investment in OpenAI  was “never a commitment” and that the company would consider any funding rounds “one at a time.”
    - “It was never a commitment,” Huang told reporters in Taipei on Sunday. “They invited us to invest up to $100 billion and of course, we were, we were very happy and honored that they invited us, but we will invest one step at a time.”

    Then

    Oracle announced that it will do a fundraiser in the form of equity and debt - needs to fund more datacenter build-out.
    - What happened to the OpenAI $300 Billion committment?
    - Or is the money that NVDA "committed to OpenAi, that they must have committed to Orcle, not a committment
    - GIGANTIC CIRCLE JERK

    Fungus - -Interesting

    - Did you know? Botrytis cinerea, a fungus causing grey mold, affects grapes by causing bunch rot, ruining fruit in high humidity.
    - While it often destroys crops, specific dry, warm conditions can transform it into "noble rot," concentrating sugars and creating high-value dessert wines (e.g., Sauternes, Tokaji) with honeyed, raisin-like, and apricot flavors.

    January Economic Review

    Employment

    — Job growth was nearly flat in December, with 50,000 new jobs added and earlier months revised lower.
    — Unemployment dipped slightly to 4.4%, but it's still higher than it was a year ago.
    — Long-term unemployment didn’t change and remains high, and the labor force participation rate slipped to 62.4%.
    — Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in December and are up 3.8% over the past year.
    — Weekly jobless claims stayed close to last year’s levels, showing a labor market that is cooling but not weakening sharply.

    FOMC / Interest Rates

    — The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at 3.50%–3.75%.
    — Most policymakers agreed the economy continues to grow at a solid pace, though job gains are slowing and inflation remains above target.
    — Two committee members supported a small rate cut, but the majority preferred to wait.
    - Fed Chair Powell: Clearly, a weakening labor market calls for cutting. A stronger labor market says that rates are in a good place. It isn't anyone's base case right now that the next move will be a rate hike.
    - The economy has once again surprised us with its strength. Consumer spending numbers overall are good, and it looks like growth overall is on a solid footing.
    - Upside risks to inflation and downside risks to employment have diminished, but hard to say they are fully in balance. We think our policy is in a good place.
    - Overall, it's a stronger forecast since the Fed's last meeting. Haven't made any decisions about future meetings, but the economy is growing at a solid pace, the unemployment rate is broadly stable and inflation remains somewhat elevated, so we will be looking to our goal variables and letting the data light the way for us.
    - Most of the overrun in goods prices is from tariffs. We think tariffs are likely to move through, and be a one-time price increase.
    - Dissent: Miran and Waller (Miran is a admin shill and Waller wanted job as Fed Chair)

    GDP & Federal Budget

    — Economic growth remained strong in Q3 2025, with GDP rising at an annualized 4.4% driven by strong spending, higher exports, and reduced imports due to tariffs.
    — Investment was mixed, with business spending increasing while housing activity declined.
    — The federal deficit for December rose to $145 billion, though the fiscal year-to-date deficit is slightly smaller than last year.

    Inflation & Consumer Spending

    — Personal income and consumer spending rose moderately in October and November.
    — Inflation, measured by the PCE index, increased 0.2% in both months and roughly 2.7% year-over-year.
    — The Consumer Price Index rose 0.3% in December, with shelter, food, and energy all contributing.
    — Producer prices also increased, though 2025 producer inflation slowed compared to 2024.

    Housing

    — Existing home sales rose in December, but the number of homes for sale is still low.
    — Prices dipped a bit from November but remain higher than they were a year ago.
    — New-home sales in October were steady compared with the prior month but much higher than last year.
    — New-home prices fell compared to 2024, though they are still high relative to long-term norms.

    Manufacturing

    — Industrial production rose 0.4% in December and was up 2.0% for the year.
    — Manufacturing output increased, while mining activity declined and utility output jumped.
    — Durable goods orders grew sharply in November, driven by a big increase in transportation equipment, pointing to strong demand in key industries.

    Imports & Exports

    — Import and export prices rose slightly through November 2025.
    — The goods trade deficit widened in November because exports fell while imports increased.
    — For the year so far, both exports and imports are running above 2024 levels, though the overall trade deficit remains larger.

    Consumer Confidence

    — Consumer confidence fell sharply in January after improving in December.
    — Both views of current conditions and expectations for the future weakened, with expectations dropping well below the level that often signals recession risk.

    Earnings

    — Roughly one-third of S&P 500 companies have reported Q4 earnings, and overall results are strong.

    — 75% of companies have beaten EPS estimates, though this is slightly below long-term averages. Revenue beats remain solid at 65%.
    — Companies are reporting earnings 9.1% above estimates, which is well above the 5-and 10-year surprise averages.
    — The S&P 500 is on track for 11.9% year-over-year earnings growth, marking the 5th straight quarter of double-digit earnings growth.
    — Eight of eleven sectors are showing positive year-over-year earnings growth, led by Information Technology, Industrials, and Communication Services.
    — The Health Care sector shows the largest earnings declines among lagging categories.
    — The forward 12-month P/E ratio sits at ~22.2, elevated relative to 5-and 10-year averages, signaling continued optimism despite tariff and cost concerns.
    — FactSet also notes the S&P 500 is reporting a record-high net profit margin of 13.2%, the highest since 2009.

    INTERACTIVE BROKERS

    Check this out and find out more at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/

     

    S3XY No More

    - Tesla is ending production of the Model S sedan and Model X crossover by the end of Q2 2026 to focus on autonomous technology and humanoid robots (Optimus).
    - Do we have any idea with the TAM for either of these are?
    - Huge assumptions that Robotaxi will be a bug part of the global transportation. But, what if it isn't?
    - Unproven being built, taking out the proven - investors were not too happy about this...Stock was down after earnings showed continued sluggish EV sales and BIG Capex for Robotaxi refit, robots and chip manufacturing.

    But...

    - Friday - not to allow TESLA stock to move down tooo much.
    - With SpaceEx looking for an IPO in June - valuations have moved from $800B to 1.5T supposedly.
    - Now there is discussion of merging in xAI and possibly Tesla
    - Tesla shares dropped after earnings

    FED CHAIR PICK

    - Drumroll: Kevin Warsh
    - Seems like a good pick from the aspect of experience and ability
    - Deficit reducer?
    - More hawkish than market expected?
    - Announce Friday after several leaks in the morning

    And then...

    - Silver futures plummeted 31.4% to settle at $78.53, marking its worst day since March 1980.
    -It was down 35% during the day - the worst daily plunge ever on record.
    - It was the worst decline since the March 1980 Hunt Brothers crash.
    - The sharp moves down were initially triggered by reports of Warsh’s nomination.
    - However, they gained steam in afternoon U.S. trading as investors who piled into the metals raced to book profits.- USD Spiked higher - Gold was down 10%
    - GOLD saw a drop of 10% to the close - 12% intraday - this was also a record
    - Bitcoin is down 25% from its recent level 2 weeks ago
    - ALL BEING BLAMED ON THE FED CHAIR PICK
    -- QUESTION - Will Trump back-peddle this OR talk to supporters in congress or tell them not to confirm him if markets continue to act squirrely?

    Fed Statement and Rates

    - Fed out with statement - no change on rates
    - Changes: Inflation up, employment steady, economy strong
    - Does not bode for much in the way of cuts - probably on hold though end of Powell term

    Apple Earnings

    - Apple reported blowout first-quarter earnings on Thursday, and predicted growth of as much as 16% in the current quarter, matching the period that just ended.
    - Sales could be even better, Apple said, if the company just secure enough chips to meet its customers’ iPhone demands.
    - The company reported $42.1 billion in net income, or $2.84 per share, versus $36.33 billion, or $2.40 per share, in the year-ago period.
    - Apple saw particularly strong results in China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong. Sales in the region surged 38% during the quarter to $25.53 billion.
    - “The constraints that we have are driven by the availability of the advanced nodes that our SoCs are produced on, and at this time, we’re seeing less flexibility in supply chain than normal,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.
    - Stock up slightly - no great moves....

    Blue Origin

    - Blue Origin will pause tourist flights to space for “no less than two years” to prioritize development of its moon lander and other lunar technologies.
    - The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence.
    - The pause in tourist flights grounds the company’s reusable New Shepard rocket, which has sent more than 90 people to the edge of space and back to experience brief periods of weightlessness.
    - Datacenters on the Moon? (sounds like a Pink Floyd album)

     

     

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    1 hr 6 min
  • DHUnplugged #788: TTM and Back

    Silver and Gold – Still Going.

    Big week for earnings.

    Fed decision on Wednesday.

    Nat Gas price exploding higher.

    US Dollar drops hard over past few days.

    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.

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    Warm-Up

    - What we learned from Davos
    - President Miyagi - tariffs on, tariffs off
    - January: stocks are trying to finish with gains - Small-caps flying
    - S&P  500: All-time highs going into earnings

    Markets

    - Silver and Gold - Still Going
    - Big week for earnings
    - Fed decision on Wednesday
    - Nat Gas price exploding
    - US Dollar drops hard over past few days

    Can't Keep Track Anymore

    -Trump has announced he is raising tariffs on South Korean imports to 25% after accusing Seoul of "not living up" to a trade deal reached last year.
    - In a post on social media, Trump said he would increase levies on South Korea from 15% across a range of products including automobiles, lumber, pharmaceuticals and "all other Reciprocal TARIFFS".
    - South Korea is planning on voting on the "agreement" with the US in February
    - KOSPI hits all-time high after being down 1% on the news
    - S. Korea President re-affirms their commitments

    Davos - 2026 - What we learned

    - Not much
    - Same bifurcated view of the world
    - Trump backed off the Greenland threats - Framework of a "deal" / "plan"
    - So, no tariffs
    - (Going to get a boy who cried wolf ....)

    Gold and Silver

    - Off to the races
    - Silver was up again in a big way Monday. Fell back down to earth (up 5% from up 15% earlier in the day
    - Hovering around $110 - that is impressive - parabolic move
    - GOLD! - Proving itself as a USD hedge and safety trade (Bitcoin in the dust)
    - Gold above $5,000 per ounce
    - - Plenty of reports that central banks are buying up|
    - USD weakness

    Economy - Still Strong

    - The US economy expanded in the third quarter by slightly more than initially reported, supported by stronger exports and a smaller drag from inventories.
    - Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increased at a revised 4.4% annualized rate, the fastest in two years, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
    - Consumer spending advanced at a 3.5% annualized pace last quarter, reflecting the fastest pace of outlays for services in three years, while spending on goods also accelerated from the previous quarter.

    Amazon

    - Trimming.... 30,000 jobs is plan
    - First half of that was in October and now trhery are laying off the remainder
    - CEO Jassey says that it is not financial of AI issues
    ---- Again - why so important to state that and make that a focal point?
    - Layoffs amount to 10% of the corporate workforce
    - Company still has 1.5 million employees

    Comeback?

    - Spirit Airlines is in talks with investment firm Castlelake for a potential takeover of the discount airline, CNBC has learned.
    - Remember, all started when Jetblue deal was blocked
    - Frontier tried
    - Spirit tried a few times to get head above water - nothing worked

    Booz Cancelled

    - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent canceled department contracts with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, whose employee leaked President Donald Trump’s tax records to The New York Times.
    - The department noted that between 2018 and 2020, Booz Allen employee Charles Edward Littlejohn “stole and leaked the confidential tax returns and return information of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers.”
    - Booz Allen Hamilton’s stock price dropped by more than 10% on the heels of the Treasury Department’s announcement.
    - Why does Booz have tax records in the first place?
    - Stock down 50% since end of 2024

    Private Credit

    - BlackRock TCP Capital shares lower by 13% after it disclosed Friday night that net asset value declined approximately 19.0%; other private credit stocks falling in sympathy
    - The Company's net asset value per share as of December 31, 2025 to be between approximately $7.05 and $7.09, an anticipated decline of approximately 19.0% during the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to a net asset value per share of $8.71 as of September 30, 2025.
    - This decline is primarily driven by issuer-specific developments during the quarter.
    - The Company's net investment income per share to be between approximately $0.24 and $0.26 for the three months ended December 31, 2025.
    - Decliners: TCPC -13.40% OWL -3.07% ARES -3.30% KKR -2.08% BAM -0.41% CG -0.33%

    Zoom Communications

    - Valuation of Anthropic stake
    - The news is driving shares higher as analysts suggest ZM's $51 mln stake could now be worth between $2-$4 bln based on Anthropic's rumored $350 bln valuation, effectively acting as a "hidden gem" on its balance sheet.
    - From a fundamental perspective, the company's performance has also significantly improved, evidenced by its Q3 beat-and-raise report in late November where revenue rose 4.4% yr/yr to $1.23 bln.
    - This stronger financial performance is being driven by robust growth in the Enterprise segment, the rapid adoption of AI Companion features, and the scaling of adjacent growth businesses like Zoom Contact Center and Workvivo.
    - Consequently, the combination of high-margin operational rigor -- highlighted by a 41.2% non-GAAP operating margin -- and the massive unrealized gains from its AI investments has shifted investor sentiment firmly back toward growth.

    UNH and Health Stocks

    - DOWN 20% today
    - The administration's proposal (via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS) for Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates to rise by only 0.09% in 2027. This was far below Wall Street expectations of 4-6% (or higher), following a more generous ~5% increase for 2026.
    - The near-flat rate aims to improve payment accuracy, curb overbilling practices, and protect taxpayers, according to CMS statements, but it sparked widespread concerns about squeezed insurer margins, potential benefit cuts for seniors, reduced plan offerings, or market exits.
    - UnitedHealth has significant exposure to Medicare Advantage (roughly 30% of national enrollment), making it particularly vulnerable. The proposal, announced late Monday (January 26), led to a broader sell-off in health insurers:
    - - Humana (HUM) plunged over 20-21%.
    - - CVS Health (CVS) and Elevance Health (ELV) each dropped around 13-14%.

    Tech Earnings

    Microsoft (MSFT)

    Reports: Wednesday, January 28 (After Market Close)
    - Wall Street Expectations:  Earnings per share (EPS): about $3.86 and Revenue: about $80 billion
    - Growth: high teens year over year revenue growth
    - Investors are focused on Azure and broader cloud growth, particularly how much of that growth is coming from AI related demand. Microsoft has built a reputation for consistent execution, which also means expectations are high. The critical issues will be cloud growth sustainability, margin stability, and how aggressively management plans to keep spending on AI infrastructure.

    Meta Platforms (META)

    Reports: Wednesday, January 28 (After Market Close)
    - Wall Street Expectations:  EPS: about $8.15–$8.20 and Revenue: about $58–$59 billion
    - Growth: roughly 20–21% year over year revenue growth
    - Advertising remains the core driver, with AI driven ad targeting continuing to improve returns for advertisers. While topline growth expectations remain strong, investors are closely watching expense growth. The biggest question is whether rising AI and infrastructure spending can be managed without eroding margins or spooking investors, as Meta works through the next phase of its AI strategy.

    Tesla (TSLA)

    Reports: Wednesday, January 28 (After Market Close)
    - Wall Street Expectations:  EPS (non GAAP): about $0.40–$0.45 and Revenue: about $24.5–$25 billion
    - Trend: earnings expected to be sharply lower than a year ago
    - Tesla enters earnings with the weakest expectations among the major tech names this week. Vehicle deliveries declined year over year, and automotive margins remain under pressure. While the energy and services segments continue to grow, they are not yet large enough to offset slowing EV demand.
    - Investors will be far more focused on forward guidance than on the quarter itself—particularly updates on Full Self Driving, robotaxis, and the broader AI roadmap.

    Apple (AAPL)

    Reports: Thursday, January 29 (After Market Close)
    Wall Street Expectations -  EPS: about $2.65–$2.67 and Revenue: about $138 billion
    Growth: approximately 11–12% year over year revenue growth
    - This is Apple’s most important quarter of the year. Expectations call for record revenue driven by the iPhone 17 cycle and continued Services growth. The focus will be on margins, China demand, and forward guidance—particularly how higher costs (memory prices and tariffs) may impact profitability.
    Apple typically beats expectations, but the stock reaction will hinge on what management says about growth beyond this quarter.

    Company
    Ticker
    Report Date
    Est. EPS
    Key Focus Area
    Microsoft
    MSFT
    Wed, Jan 28 (AMC)
    $3.92
    Azure AI revenue growth & CapEx spending
    Meta Platforms
    META
    Wed, Jan 28 (AMC)
    $8.17
    Ad monetization of AI & 2026 CapEx guidance
    Tesla
    TSLA
    Wed, Jan 28 (AMC)
    $0.45
    Full Self-Driving (FSD) & Robotaxi updates
    Apple
    AAPL
    Thu, Jan 29 (AMC)
    Varies
    iPhone 17 demand & Apple Intelligence rollout
    ServiceNow
    NOW
    Wed, Jan 28 (AMC)
    $0.88
    Enterprise AI software adoption rates
    IBM
    IBM
    Wed, Jan 28 (AMC)
    $4.28
    Hybrid cloud and watsonx performance

    *AMC = After Market Close; EPS = Earnings Per Share (Consensus Estimates)

    Boeing

    - The company’s airplane deliveries last year were the highest since 2018, helping drive revenue. Boeing brought in $23.9 billion in the last three months of 2025, a 57% increase over the same period in 2024 and topping analysts’ expectations. Cash flow of $400 million was roughly double what Wall Street was expecting.
    - Boeing brought in $23.9 billion in the last three months of 2025, a 57% increase over the same period in 2024.
    The airplane manufacturer delivered 600 airplanes last year, up from 348 a year earlier.

    Another MoonShot

    - U.S. natural gas prices surged over 17% on Monday morning, climbing above $6 for the first time since late 2022.
    - It comes as Winter Storm Fern leaves hundreds of thousands without power and forces mass flight cancellations.
    - The National Weather Service has forecast wind chills as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit (-45.56 degrees Celsius) across the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. this week.
    -Up 68% YTD
    - Nat gas is used in a whole lot of things - electrical grid 43% is fueled by Nat Gas

    Government - Not Again!

    - Seems like Dems are threatening a shutdown again
    - A partial U.S. government shutdown is set to begin on Friday, January 30, 2026.
    - The Senate is expected to vote on a funding package to avert this shutdown, with delays from a winter storm pushing initial votes to at least January 27, 2026
    - The issue is being exacerbated with the ICE / Minnesota issues

    This is precious

    - Ex-finance minister Noda currently co-heads largest opposition party
    - He says that Japan unlikely to get international consent for intervention
    - Yen, bond selloff requires Japan to be in crisis mode, he says
    - Government must vow to restore fiscal discipline to end yen fall, Noda says
    - Japan must create environment allowing for steady BOJ rate hikes, he says
    - THIS shows us all that the whole thing with these guys/gals is all political.
    - NEVER EVER if he was in the role would he say anything like this.

     

     

     

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    1 hr 6 min
  • DHUnplugged #787: The Elitists Convene

    Here we go again – Tariffs and retaliatory tariffs

    DAVOS – Elitists are Meeting

    Suicide Coaches?

    Hedge funds – finally a good year!

    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?

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    Warm-Up

    - Here we go again - Tariffs and retaliatory tariffs
    - DAVOS - Elitists are Meeting
    - Suicide Coaches?
    - Hedge funds - finally a good year!

    Markets

    - Silver and Gold - ATH
    - Selling off after Greenland threat
    - Netflix - Saga continues

    Davos - 2026

    - Economic Confab that often brings out the elite (elitists)
    - Many watch for their key points and do the opposite
    - Trump going, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi not
    - Why is Zelensky going?
    - Kushner, Bessent, Little Marco will be attending with Trump
    - Did you know - Larry Fink is the interim Co-Chair.
    - The CEOs that you would expect that love the limelight ) (Jensen, Nadella etc)

    World Economic Forum Report (Davos)

    - Due out Wednesday - expected to show that geopolitical confrontation is the top concern this year
    - Rising Inflation
    - Economic Downturn
    - Asset Bubbles
    - High debt burdens
    - Any of those could be any year and anyone in the world that is breathing could have made that list

    WEF List

    NEXT

    - Greenland - Sell or Else!
    - Trump promises 100% that he will impose tariffs and follow through
    - The tariffs will start at 10% on Feb. 1 and shoot up to 25% on June 1, Trump said.
    - Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland
    - Supposedly in response to EU allies moving troops into Greenland
    - Greenland protests with - Make America Go Away hats
    - 200% tariff threatened in champagne and wines (Mad at Macron)

    Oh - and Gaza

    - The new Board of Peace
    - Trump names himself 'Board of Peace' chair under October plan
    - Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, former British prime minister Tony Blair and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
    - Supposedly Putin has said he was also invited to be on the board.
    - Purpose? Officially, the Board is mandated to “promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict...

    Saks - bankrupt

    - Chapter 11
    - Problems really got worse after they agreed to purchase Needless Markup (aka Neiman Marcus)
    - Amazon filed an objection to Saks Global’s bankruptcy financing plan on the grounds it could harm creditors and push the tech company further down the repayment pecking order.
    - Amazon The tech company invested $475 million into Saks’ acquisition of Neiman Marcus in December 2024,  a stake it said is now effectively “worthless.”
    - Amazon threatened more “drastic remedies” if Saks doesn’t heed its concerns, including the appointment of an examiner or a trustee.
    - Amazon initially invested because it thought Saks would start selling its products on Amazon’s website and the tech company would offer technology and logistics expertise.|
    - Amazon's attorneys: “Saks continuously failed to meet its budgets, burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year, and ran up additional hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices owed to its retail partners.”

    Suicide Coaches

    - “This year, you really saw something pretty horrific, which is these AI models became suicide coaches,” Benioff told CNBC’s Sarah Eisen on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum’s flagship conference in Davos, Switzerland.
    - In 2018, Benioff said social media should be treated like a health issue, and said the platforms should be regulated like cigarettes: “They’re addictive, they’re not good for you.”
    - “Bad things were happening all over the world because social media was fully unregulated,” he said Tuesday, “and now you’re kind of seeing that play out again with artificial intelligence.”

    China

    - China 2025 new yuan loans 16.27 trln yuan, lowest since 2018
    - Dec new yuan loans beat forecast
    - PBOC announces targeted monetary policy easing
    - "From the asset side, amid the property market adjustment, the private sector including households and firms showed insufficient willingness to add leverage, while government bond issuance was ramped up to stabilize leverage and the economy."
    - Now what is happening is that $ that used to go into real estate is heading for stocks/risk assets.
    - Chinese authorities tightened rules on margin financing, signaling unease over the pace of a rally.
    - - Under the new rule, investors must now provide margin equal to the full value of the securities they buy on credit, up from the previous 80% threshold.
    - - - Regulators made the move to rein in potential froth in financial markets, with a fund manager saying it sends a clear signal that they want a slow bull market, not an overheated one.
    --- Under the new rule, investors must now provide margin equal to the full value of the securities they buy on credit, up from the previous 80% threshold, according to a Shenzhen Stock Exchange statement. The move, which applies to Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing bourses, underscores regulators’ efforts to rein in potential froth in financial markets.

    More China

    - China’s population of 1.4 billion continued to shrink, marking the fourth straight year of decrease, new government statistics show. The total population in 2025 stood at 1.404 billion, which was 3 million less than the previous year.
    - After the one-child policy - now government is pushing or more births
    - Measured another way, the birth rate in 2025 — 5.63 per 1,000 people — is the lowest on record since 1949
    - Government tactics range from cash subsidies to taxing condoms to eliminating a tax on matchmakers and day care centers.

    Bank Earnings

    - Generally pretty good!
    - Yield curve is helping in a big way - steepening
    - Goldman beats, BAC beast Morgan Stanley bets etc. etc.
    - Goldman: The company said profit jumped 12% from a year earlier to $4.62 billion, or $14.01 per share, on gains across its capital markets businesses.
    - Morgan Stanley: Last Thursday reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations on the back of strong revenue from wealth management.

    Fed Chair

    - Over the weekend, Hassett thinks Trump is right not to have him in that position (What a sap! Good he is not in running anymore)
    - Rick Reider and Warsh are front-runners
    - Who ever kisses the most ass should win
    - Warsh would actually be a good pick - experience and smart guy that is level headed
    - Meanwhile - all of a sudden Trump says he is not looking to fire Powell (maybe h wants him to resign)

    Netflix/Warner Brothers Update

    - Netflix now plans to pay $27.75 per WBD share entirely in cash to acquire WBD’s streaming platform HBO Max and the Warner Bros. film studio.
    - In reaction tot he hostile takeover bid from Paramount/Skydance
    - The last offer was unanimously approved by the BOD
    - NFLX Earnings .....
    --- Earnings per share: 56 cents vs. 55 cents, estimated
    ------Revenue: $12.05 billion vs $11.97 billion, estimated
    - Stock down AH

    Inflation (Did we talk about this?)

    - Even though we are told there is little inflation...
    - Consumer Price Index increases 0.3% in December
    - Food, rents were the main drivers of consumer inflation
    - Underlying inflation rises a moderate 0.2%
    - Food prices surged 0.7%

    Planes!

    - Boeing outsold Airbus last year
    - First time since 2018
    - BA stock made an ATH last week

    Bond Vigilantes

    - Danish pension operator AkademikerPension said it is exiting U.S. Treasurys over finance concerns tied to America’s budget shortfall.
    - The move comes amid increasing tensions with the U.S. over Greenland as President Donald Trump pushes for control of the island.
    - AkademikerPension said it plans to have closed its position of around $100 million in U.S. Treasurys by the end of the month.
    - 10 YR yields moved up again to 4.3%
    - What if.....??? (Mutual assured destruction?)

    Hedgies

    - Hedge fund investors posted gains of about 12.6% last year, the best returns since 2009, according to data compiled by Hedge Fund Research Inc.
    - Funds run by industry giants such as D.E. Shaw & Co. and Millennium Management posted double-digit returns, with Bridgewater Associates' Pure Alpha II fund scoring a 34% gain.
    - Hedge funds secured net inflows of $71 billion during the first three quarters of last year, a major reversal after a decade of outflows, with the industry's giants being among the major beneficiaries.

     

     

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    1 hr 6 min
  • 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.

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    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

     

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    Neil Larion
    Mary Lou Schwarzer

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    1 hr 1 min
  • DHUnplugged #785: January Effect

    LOVE HOSTILE TAKEOVERS?

    Upgrades all around the AI trade again…

    January Effect

    Defense and Oil Related – Let’s Go!

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

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    Interactive Brokers 

    Warm-Up

    - CTP Cup - We have a winner!
    - Kitchen Cabinets rejoice!
    - Buffett is retired (kind of)
    - ALL TIME HIGHS - DJIA Leading so far in 2026

    Markets

    - LOVE HOSTILE TAKEOVERS?
    - Upgrades all around the AI trade again...
    - January Effect
    - Defense and Oil Related!
    - Calling BS on Venezuela economic plans

    Doctor Copper

    - Copper surpassed $13,000 a ton for the first time due to a renewed rush to ship metal to the US.
    - The rally has been underpinned by the ongoing threat of import tariffs from President Donald Trump, causing US copper prices to trade at a premium to those on the London Metal Exchange.
    - The market has been driven by uncertainty over future US tariff policy, with analysts warning that the rest of the world could run short of copper due to low inventories outside the US.
    - Huge inventory build due to uncertainty

    Copper Chart

    Following up on that...Some Questions

    - Isn't the massive inventory build we are seeing due to uncertainly?
    - Lots bought before tariffs went into effect - then tariffs reduced...
    - Will there be a hangover from a the pull-forward like we have seen in the past?

    Best markets for 2025

    Colombia: +80%

    South Korea (KOSPI): +76%
    Ghana: +79%
    Brazil (Bovespa): +34%
    Japan (Nikkei 225): +26%
    Europe STOXX 600: +19%
    China (Shanghai Composite): +18%
    U.S. S&P 500: +17%
    U.S. Nasdaq: +21%
    U.S. Dow Jones: +12%

    US Dollar

    - Basket USD is at 8 year LOW
    - Yen at key intervention level (again)
    - NO MANIPULATION HERE!
    -- -- Gold/Silver betting trend continues...
    - What happened to -> "a strong USD is in the best interests of the USA"?

    Monday Markets

    - For no apparent reason....(could it be the Venezuela news???)
    - Markets JUMPED
    - Oil and Defense stocks moved!
    - DJIA up ~ 600 Points
    ---These stocks were about 500 points of the 600:
    - GS Goldman Sachs Group Inc
    - CAT Caterpillar Inc
    - JPM JPMorgan Chase & Co
    - CVX Chevron Corp
    - V Visa Inc
    ---- GS is 1/2 the DJIA gains for 2026

    Here we go...

    - Elon Musk's Grok is generating sexualized images of women and minors
    - users are taking pictures of others and telling Grok to "remove their clothes" or "put them in a thong bikini"
    - review of public requests sent to Grok over a single 10-minute-long period at midday U.S. Eastern Time last Friday tallied 102 attempts by X users to use Grok to digitally edit photographs of people so that they would appear to be wearing bikinis.
    - Politicians in France ask prosecutors to investigate; India demands answers
    - Experts have long warned Grok owner xAI about potential misuses of AI-generated content
    - Ministers in France have reported X to prosecutors and regulators over the disturbing images, saying in a statement on Friday the "sexual and sexist" content was "manifestly illegal." India's IT ministry said in a letter to X's local unit that the platform failed to prevent Grok's misuse by generating and circulating obscene and sexually explicit content.
    - Guardrails not very tight along the track
    - Surprised?

    TESLA

    - Sales awful
    - Stock holdingup
    - BYD Co. outsold Tesla Inc. in Europe’s two largest electric-vehicle markets last year as the Chinese automaker continues its global expansion.
    - BYD registered more than twice as many new vehicles in December as Tesla did in Germany, and outperformed Tesla in the UK with 51,422 registrations compared to Tesla’s 45,513.
    - BYD delivered 2.26 million EVs in 2025 to Tesla’s 1.64 million, and has made strong inroads in the UK where Chinese brands have been attracting consumers with cheaper sticker prices.
    - NVDA announced it is expanding autonomous driving sector

    INTERACTIVE BROKERS

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    Silver and Gold

    - As we predicted
    - Gold and silver prices fell Wednesday after exchange operator CME Group again hiked the margins on precious metal futures.
    - CME Group said in a statement Tuesday that the decision was made “as per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage.”
    - That caused some to sell positions to bring margin requirement in check
    - - Should be temporary until metals find their margin equilibrium

    Bitcoin

    - Starting the year off right
    - Up 7% in 2026 after a very poor 2025
    - Crypto moving as well
    - Safe haven trade, catch up trade or who-knows-what-the-hell trade?

    January Effect

    - The January Effect is a market phenomenon where stock prices—especially small-cap stocks—tend to rise more in January than in other months.
    - Tax-loss selling in December: Investors often sell losing positions at year-end to offset capital gains for tax purposes.
    - Reinvestment in January: After the new year, they buy back stocks, creating upward pressure.
    - Bonus and cash inflows: Year-end bonuses and new investment allocations often hit the market in January.
    - Small-caps up almost 3% YTD

    Impressive

    - Investors fortunate enough to own Berkshire since 1965, when Buffett took over, realized a return of about 6,100,000%, far above the S&P 500's approximately 46,000% return including dividends.
    - Buffett is now officially retired - said to be one (or the) greatest investors of our time
    - Buffett, 95, will remain chairman and plans to keep going every day to Berkshire's office in Omaha, Nebraska, about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of his home, and help Abel.
    - They still have not completely figured out who will run the equity portfolio after Todd Combs left to join JPM

    Kitchen Cabinet Relief

    - Steep tariffs on upholstered furniture and kitchen cabinets and vanities have been delayed by the Trump administration.
    - It’s the latest roller coaster of Trump's tariff wars since he returned to office last year.
    - The administration is also scaling back on a steep tariff proposed on Italian pasta that would have put the rate at 107%.

    Let's talk Venezuela

    - The idea that the US is just going to come in an turn everything rosy is dumb - overly simplistic thesis
    --- Sets up a bad global potential for overthrowing governments - where does it stop
    - The idea that US companies are going to go in there and drill and US is going to reimburse for costs?
    --- The country is allied with Russia and China - not US (at this time)
    - This is reminiscent of when we opened the doors to Cuba - we opened it up and no one benefited. Maybe this time will be different.
    - BUT Venezuela owns the largest proven oil reserves in the world, holding approximately 303 billion barrels as of the end of 2024, which is nearly 18–19% of global reserves. So, that is something.

    VZ Oil Production

    Drug Price Hikes

    - Drugmakers plan to raise U.S. prices on at least 350 branded medications including vaccines against COVID, RSV and shingles and blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance, even as the Trump administration pressures them for cuts
    - The number of price increases for 2026 is up from the same point last year, when drugmakers unveiled plans for raises on more than 250 drugs. The median of this year's price hikes is around 4% - in line with 2025.
    -Drugmakers also plan to cut the list prices on around nine drugs. That includes a more than 40% cut for Boehringer Ingelheim's diabetes drug Jardiance and three related treatments.

    Greenland

    - What are the odds????? (Prediction Markets are on it! https://forecasttrader.interactivebrokers.com/eventtrader/#/market-details?id=791099793%7C20290101%7C0%7C&detail=contract_details)
    - “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

    In Closing

    - The "AI NOT LESS PEOPLE WORKING" - Scam
    - “I would say that we’re actually not hiring fewer people,” AMDs Lisa Su told CNBC’s Jon Fortt on Tuesday from the CES conference in Las Vegas. “Frankly, we’re growing very significantly as a company, so we actually are hiring lots of people, but we’re hiring different people. We’re hiring people who are AI forward.”

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    Jim Beaver

    Mike Kazmierczak
    Joe Metzger
    Ken Degel
    David Martin
    Dean Wormell
    Neil Larion
    Mary Lou Schwarzer

    Eric Harvey (2024 Winner)

     

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    1 hr 4 min
  • DHUnplugged #784: Auld Lang Xiety

    Looking at a weird GDP data point.

    Calling BS on Russia/Ukraine peace talks.

    Gold and Silver – WOW!

    Closing out the year – a good one too!

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

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    Warm-Up

    - CTP Cup - All systems go! 9 participants!
    - Lots to be excited about and anxious too
    - Looking at a weird GDP data point
    - Calling BS on Russia/Ukraine peace talks

    Markets

    - Gold and Silver - WOW!
    - Closing out the year - a good one too!
    - Buyers are still hot to buy any dip
    - "Diet" pills coming

    Bitters Making Progress 

    - Chocolate
    -Dark Cherry
    -Infusions
    - https://highdesertbotanicals.com

    NYE Celebration

    - Cities across America ring in the new year by dropping unexpected objects:
    - Amelia Island, FL drops a giant shrimp.
    - Nashville drops a 400lb musical note with 28,140 LEDs.
    - Boise, ID, drops a glowing potato.
    - Key West, FL, drops an eight-foot ruby-red heel—complete with a drag queen inside!
    - In Spain, revelers gulp down 12 grapes—one for each midnight chime—to bring luck for each month
    - Denmark - Danes toss old dishes at friends’ doors—large piles of broken crockery at dawn are seen as tokens of good luck.

    What a year!

    - So many themes in 12 months
    - AI, Tariffs, War and Trade War, Fat drugs, Deglobalization
    - Data centers, semiconductors, and supporting infrastructure like power and cooling systems.
    - Approx: DJIA +13.5%, SP500 +17%, NASDA +21%, BTCUSD -7.6%, Gold +64%, SLV +145%, $DXY -9.5%, EEM +30%
    - 2026 - Opportunities and Auld Lang Xiety (Tech still looks frothy in certain names)

    Top New Year's Resolutions

    - Exercise More
    - Eat Healthier
    - Save More Money/Get Out of Debt
    - Be Happy/Improve Mental Health
    - Lose Weight
    - Spend More Time with Family & Friends
    - Learn a New Skill/Hobby
    - Get Organized

    Active Management (Funds)

    - Same report annually
    - A small group of tech super stocks accounted for an outsize share of returns in 2025, extending a pattern in place for the better part of a decade.
    - Around $1 trillion was pulled from active equity mutual funds over the year, marking an 11th year of net outflows, while passive equity exchange-traded funds got more than $600 billion.
    - The concentration of gains in a few stocks made it harder for active managers to do well, with 73% of equity mutual funds trailing their benchmarks this year, the fourth most in data going back to 2007.
    - BUT, there are some areas that it makes sense for active management
    ---- Equity vs Fixed income and reasoning
    --- Efficient markets, boots on the ground

    Fat Pill

    - The FDA has approved the first-ever GLP-1 pill from Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk.
    - Novo Nordisk said the starting dose of 1.5 milligrams will be available in early January in pharmacies and via select telehealth providers with savings offers for $149 per month.
    - The approval gives Novo Nordisk a head start over chief rival Eli Lilly, which is racing to launch its own obesity pill.
    - Packaged food makers and fast-food restaurants may be forced to overhaul more of their products next year as newly approved, appetite-suppressing GLP-1 pills become available in January

    PowerBall

    - A ticket sold in Arkansas scored a $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot after Wednesday night's draw — one of the richest lottery prizes in U.S. history, landing just in time for Christmas.
    - The payout soared after last Monday’s drawing produced no winners, with last-minute ticket sales pushing the jackpot to $1.817 billion. That makes it the second-largest U.S. lottery prize ever and the biggest Powerball of 2025, the lottery website said on Thursday.
    - The winning numbers — 4, 25, 31, 52, 59 and the Powerball 19
    - Odds: one in 292.2 million.

    Silver

    - Amazing year!
    - Sunday night futures - >$83 then turned hard lower|
    - Down 7% on Monday
    - Range $83 - $71 (15%) for the day
    - Some rumors about a bank collapse due to wrong way position on Silver - forced liquidation and covering....
    ----- Hard to believe that a bank was short that much silver - but.....

    SoKo Breach

    - South Korean online retail giant Coupang said it will offer 1.69 trillion South Korean won ($1.17 billion) in compensation to 34 million users affected by a massive data breach disclosed last month.
    - That is about 4% of Coupang's annual revenue - but a big chunk of their profit
    - $34 per user

    NVDA Deal

    - Nvidia has yet to issue a public announcement or disclosure regarding its $20 billion Groq deal that CNBC was first to cover on Wednesday.
    - Groq described the deal as a “non-exclusive licensing agreement,” a tool that’s been used by tech giants of late in part to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
    - Analyst: “Antitrust would seem to be the primary risk here, though structuring the deal as a non-exclusive license may keep the fiction of competition alive,” Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon wrote in a report.
    - Groq will remain an independent company (?)

    GDP Consumption

    - Something is a bit off....
    - With the marketplace costs increasing, this may be more than a one-off expenditure

    Q3 GDP Surge

    Russia/Ukraine

    - Less that an hour after the White House claimed great movement toward peace
    - Russian President Putin told President Trump that Russia will revise its negotiating position, raising questions over prospects for peace deal
    - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Ukraine tried to attack Russian President Putin's residence
    - Does anyone even listen to the crap coming out of the White House anymore?
    - Did you hear Lutnick trying to explain the 600% reduction in costs for pharmaceuticals? Math wizards!
    - - For 2026, my wish is that they continue to work on the job at hand and just shut up

    Just for fun - Who is biggest drinker of spirits?

    - While there's no single official "heaviest drinker," legendary wrestler Andre the Giant is widely cited as having unmatched capacity, famously downing 119 beers in one sitting (or even up to 156 in other accounts)

    Oil

    - Crude oil futures down about 9.5% YTD
    - Much of the drop due to pick up in production (supply/demand)
    - Still a floor with as Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela etc
    - What will it take to move up?

    Best Auto Stock for 2025?

    - GM! Better than ford, Tesla and others (up 55%) - best year from coming out of bankruptcy in 2009
    - Ford up 35%
    - Mary Barra, CEO selling into the strength - $73 M sold this year (Position down 73% from what she held last year)
    - - - Barra has contended for years that stock undervalued. With all of these say what does that say now?
    --- Would she ever say shares are overvalued?

    More fun stats

    - A peer?reviewed 2025 study estimates AI data centers (including indirect usage from electricity generation) consumed 312–765 billion liters of water annually. That’s more than all bottled water consumed worldwide each year
    - Direct (on-site) water is used for cooling servers via systems like cooling towers or liquid loops.
    Indirect (off-site) water stems from electricity generation—particularly from thermal and nuclear plants, which require significant cooling resources
    - ??? Estimates suggest a single standard AI prompt (about 100 words) is linked to around 1.5 liters of water—accounting for the entire chain of consumption. (This is total usage from cooling powr consumption, electricity generation)
    - Global AI workloads consumed 50–60 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025—roughly the annual electricity use of a medium-sized country like Switzerland.
    - By 2030, AI-related electricity demand could reach 300–500 TWh annually, according to energy analysts—comparable to the entire electricity consumption of countries like France.

    Over to Iran

    - President Trump tells reporters that if Iran is building up its nuclear program, the U.S. will have to "knock them down" again
    --- Wait - I thought we destroyed all of their nuke aspirations???
    - - - AND - Iran's currency hit a record low, triggering wave of protests, according to Bloomberg

    Fed News

    - Top Fed Chair Candidate Odds Narrow Again, With Hassett at 43% and Warsh at 35%
    - President Trump still angry at Powell 0threating to sue for incompetence

    Odd

    - Tesla Inc. published a series of sales estimates indicating the outlook for its vehicle deliveries may be lower than many investors were expecting.
    - The carmaker posted estimates showing analysts on average expect the company to deliver 422,850 cars in the fourth quarter, down 15% from a year earlier.
    - Tesla is on course for its second consecutive drop in annual vehicle sales, with the company compiling an average estimate for 1.6 million deliveries, down more than 8% from a year earlier.
    - These are estimates published by analysts - Tesla put on its own site - WHY?

    End of Year Stat

    - The U.S. national debt is climbing at a rapid pace and has shown no signs of slowing down despite the growing criticism of massive levels of government spending.
    - The national debt, which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors, rose to $38,386,384,190,622.68 as of Dec. 30, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department.
    - That is an increase of about $5.8 billion daily
    - ~$18 per person in the US per day increase ($7,300) - or about the monthly price of leasing a small Mercedes
    - Each person in US owes approx $128,000

     

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    David Martin
    Dean Wormell
    Neil Larion
    Mary Lou Schwarzer

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    1 hr 4 min
  • DHUnplugged #783: Santa Is That You?

    Patriot games are coming.

    Larry Ellison in the spotlight.

    Hi Ho Silver and away!

    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.

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    Warm-Up

    - CTP Cup - All systems go! 9 participants!
    - ELON gets his $$$
    - Kids account challenge
    - Patriot games are coming...

    Markets

    - Not much headwinds - EOY approaching
    - Analysts predicting SP500 for 2026 - 7,500 (12% upside)
    - More Oracle back and forth
    - Gold and Silver

    Elon

    - Elon Musk's net worth surged to $749 billion late Friday after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Tesla stock options worth $139 billion that were voided last year
    - He also recently received a $1T pay plan approval
    - Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang combined
    - His fortune exceeds the GDP of nations like the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland.
    - He is richer than every country in Africa by GDP
    - He is projected by some reports to become the world's first trillionaire by 2027

    When did Larry Ellison and Oracle become newsworthy?

    - Every day in the news....
    - Larry Ellison NOW Personally Guarantees Paramount Bid for Warner Bros.
    - The announcement of Mr. Ellison’s personal guarantee is meant to address concerns that the Warner Bros. Discovery’s board had expressed about Paramount’s original offer.
    - Helping out sonny-boy?

    More Oracle

    - Oracle stock slid after a report that Blue Owl Capital won’t back a $10 billion data center for OpenAI. (Michigan)
    - Oracle has $248 billion in lease commitments for data centers and cloud capacity commitments over the next 15 to 19 years.
    - Oracle later responded to the FT report, saying the project was moving forward and that Blue Owl was not part of equity talks.

    EVEN MORE!

    - Multiple media outlets, including the Associated Press, reported that ByteDance has reached an agreement with Oracle ORCL, Silver Lake, and Abu-Dhabi-based MGX to set up a joint venture for TikTok’s US operations. Oracle will hold a 15.0% stake in the new entity, while ByteDance will retain a 19.9% stake.
    - The important thing her is that TikTok stays as a major tenant of OCI as ORCL needs this cash flow...
    - Of all of the items, this may be why ORCL stock has bounced te last few days.

    Congressional Ban

    - A vote on legislation banning members from owning or trading stocks could get a vote in the new year, according to House leadership and Republican members.
    - President Donald Trump has said he supports a congressional ban but has pushed back on versions that include the executive branch.
    - Basically this bill would prohibit the ownership of individual stocks by congress

    Over to Japan

    - Bank of Japan raises benchmark rates to highest in 30 years, lifting 10-year JGB yield past 2%
    - Yen still VERY weak - trading at 157/USD - (problematic)
    - The BOJ said that real interest rates are expected to remain “significantly negative,” adding that accommodative financial conditions will continue to firmly support economic activity.
    - The yen weakened 0.25% against the USD after the decision - therefore still dovish and stimulative

    Economic Numbers

    - Estimates, partial numbers and best guesses. OH, 2-month averaging as well
    - The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the annual headline inflation rate and core CPI rate for last month were 2.7% and 2.6%, respectively, well below expectations.
    - Due to government shutdown, BLS to make certain methodological assumptions about the prior month’s inflation levels.
    - Those assumptions in the methodology were not clear to economists and were not fully explained in the release.
    - Here is a big issue: The price changes in October for the OER (owners equivalent rent) appear to have been “set to zero.”

     Sports Prediction Markets

    - Sports is fueling the growth and is forecasted to make up 44% of volume as prediction markets mature.
    - According to one expert: the fundamental elements of consumer demand and an array of diverse brands looking to meet that demand are clearly in place
    - Sportsbooks are getting a bit nervous....

    First Dell, then...

    - Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates and his wife, Barbara, committed to seed Trump accounts for approximately 300,000 children in Connecticut.
    - Following the Dells’ pledge, the funds will be aimed at kids who live in a Connecticut ZIP code where the median income is less than $150,000.
    - The Dalio grant will fund $250 per child for approximately 300,000 children in Connecticut. This applies to children who live in a ZIP code where the median income is less than $150,000. About 87% of Connecticut ZIP codes meet that criteria, according to a CNBC analysis of Census Bureau data.
    - “Ray has joined what we are calling the 50-state challenge,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press conference on Wednesday.
    - A growing number of companies have announced they would match contributions to Trump accounts for their employees, including BNY and BlackRock.

    Patriot Games (Hunger Games?)

    - Trump announced: The Washington Monument will be illuminated with festive lights, a triumphal arc will be constructed and the “Patriot Games” will commence. The games are an “unprecedented four-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes: one young man and one young woman from each state and territory.
    - Uhhhhhh "And so it was decreed that, each year, the various districts of Panem would offer up, in tribute, one young man and woman to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice. (Hunger Games 2012)
    - What next - PURGE NIGHT?

    Fed Pick

    - Now it seems as if it is a 4 person race...
    - President Trump says "Nowadays, when there is good news, the market goes down because everybody thinks that interest rates will be immediately lifted"; says "I want my new Fed Chairman to lower interest rates if the market is doing well"; says "Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!"

    San Fran Blackout

    - Alphabet-owned Waymo resumed its robotaxi service in the San Francisco Bay Area Sunday evening after pausing it amid widespread blackouts that had affected their vehicles’ behavior.
    - Waymo said it worked with city officials throughout the blackout and had “proactively” initiated a temporary suspension of its service.
    - Interesting point there - what happens when grid disruptions for internet with self-driving

    Angry Shareholders (For a minute)

    - Tricolor CEO Daniel Chu directed a deputy to send him $6.25 million in bonuses in August, weeks before the company filed for bankruptcy, U.S. prosecutors alleged.
    - Subprime autofirm that had alleged fraud
    - This happens all the time
    - Big issue to keep alert to is the news about "Subprime"

    WEED

    - Trump’s executive order shifts cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, easing research, banking and tax restrictions and marking the biggest federal cannabis policy change in decades.
    - Shares of cannabis conglomerates were down following the announcement, likely from worries of new competition from international companies.
    - NOT legalization - NOT for recreational use...
    - Banking, Institutional capital .....

    OpenAi

    - Beggars cup continues
    - OpenAI is in initial discussions to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon.com Inc. and use its chips, a potential win for the online retailer’s effort to broaden its AI industry presence and compete with Nvidia Corp.
    - The deal under discussion could value OpenAI north of $500 billion and see it adopt Amazon’s Trainium chip, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking to remain anonymous to describe private negotiations.
    - Talks, however, are at a preliminary stage and terms could change, the person added.

    High Ho Silver and Away!

    - Silver up 135% YTD
    - Gold up 70%
    - Best year since strongest annual performance since 1979 for Gold
    - 1970's was inflation, USD weakening, Energy crisis.
    - What is similar/different now? (Big difference is buying up (China, Poland, Turkey, India)

    Light menu

    - Darden Restaurants will roll out a new lighter portion entrées menu at all Olive Garden locations in January, the company announced during its quarterly earnings call last Thursday.
    - Citing affordability: "Olive Garden has seen a double-digit increase in affordability perceptions from guests who order from the lighter portions menu and an increase in frequency among these guests, which should help build traffic over time," Cardenas said.
    - Sooooo 0 due to high costs, Americans are cutting back on food?
    - If it were for weight loss, no need for Oliver garden to cut back on portions as most inedible anyway...

    Copper

    - Copper prices topped $12,000 a ton for the first time, extending the metal’s recent bull run as mine outages add to concerns about supply.
    - The threat of US import tariffs on the metal has also been an important factor pushing up prices this year, with copper piling up in American warehouses.
    - Industry analysts have said that much of the richest and most easily accessible mining resources are now exhausted, and experts are warning that the market is on the cusp of a major deficit.

    Jim Beam

    - Bourbon maker Jim Beam is halting production at one of its distilleries in Kentucky for at least a year as the whiskey industry navigates tariffs from the Trump administration and slumping demand for a product that needs years of aging before it is ready.
    - Jim Beam said the decision to pause bourbon making at its Clermont location in 2026 will give the company time to invest in improvements at the distillery. The bottling and warehouse at the site will remain open, along with the James B. Beam Distilling Co. visitors center and restaurant.
    - The percentage of U.S. adults who say they consume alcohol has fallen to 54%, the lowest by one percentage point in Gallup’s nearly 90-year trend.

    Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?

    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

    1 hr

About DHUnplugged Podcast

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DHUnplugged Podcast – A Weekly Update of the More Interesting Side of Finance and Investing

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