That70s Da

The unglamorous link came out healthiest in Monday's corrected AI-chain post: the server makers - Dell, Super Micro and Celestica - with a 9.8 out of 10 demand score. What sits under the score: Dell's 151 billion dollar year and a 79% estimate raise, Super Micro's 93% growth with free cash flow at minus 18% of sales, and the 90s beige-box lesson - every dollar of a boom passes through a box, and the box builders keep the least of it. Plus the 17% price drop that stopped agreeing with the numbers.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/the-guys-who-bolt-the-racks-together

The correction post this follows: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/fixing-my-chain-post

Not financial advice.

The rotation map sorts every sector and theme into four boxes - Leading, Weakening, Lagging, Improving. Tonight: Energy out front at 120, health care and staples behind it, the hyperscalers leading but barely moving, and technology lagging with the worst momentum on the board - even after the chip index snapped its eight-day losing streak. Plus the 2000-2001 value rotation, and what would actually change my mind.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/whos-running-in-front-tonight-and

Yesterday's daily read, 'One green day after eight red ones': https://that70sda.substack.com/p/one-green-day-after-eight-red-ones

Not financial advice.

I got part of the chain post wrong - and I'd rather fix it in public. After finding a few bugs in my tracker and rerunning the numbers, the GPU renters fall from "strongest link" to a demand score of 6.3, the server makers come out healthiest, and power and cooling stays thinnest. The link I worried about turns out to be more worth worrying about, not less

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/fixing-my-chain-post

The post it corrects, "Ten links in one chain": https://that70sda.substack.com/p/ten-links-in-one-chain

Not financial advice.

After eight straight red days - the chip index's longest losing streak since October 2008 - the SOX finally bounced: up 1.61%, with the Nasdaq up 1.11% and the S&P 500 up 0.41%. But one green day isn't a trend. This episode reads the bounce against the dashboard (stress 3.9 out of 10, only 31% of stocks advancing, oil at $103.66), looks at what first bounces did in October 2002 and August 2024, and sets up Wednesday's Meta and Tesla earnings.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/one-green-day-after-eight-red-ones

Not financial advice.

The AI build-out is one chain of ten links - chip designers, memory, servers, the cloud giants, power and cooling, the GPU renters - and it only moves as fast as its weakest link. This episode walks the whole chain: revenue up 283% at the GPU renters and 202% in memory, power and cooling the thinnest link, and the credit market charging one big renter over 15% to borrow. Plus the 1990s fiber lesson: build-outs usually fail at the financing, not the technology.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/ten-links-in-one-chain

Update: I later corrected part of this episode - see "Fixing my chain post": https://that70sda.substack.com/p/fixing-my-chain-post

Not financial advice.

Born in the '70s, working since the '90s - from kernel-mode code to the cloud to the AI era, through the dot-com bust, 2008, COVID, and every panic in between. That70s Da is a short podcast on technology, markets, and the lessons three decades taught me the hard way. No hype, no predictions, nobody telling you what to buy - just the mistakes I actually made, what they cost, and the patterns I wish someone had pointed out thirty years ago. New episodes most days, a few minutes each.

Read the long-form writing: https://that70sda.substack.com

Also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2g1VEsoRFdXiZEBWA2xPy4

Not financial advice.

A guided tour of the dashboard I check before I form an opinion. After Friday's spike, market stress still reads 3.14 out of 10, credit spreads are calm, the 10-year Treasury sits at 5.09%, and oil is the twitchy one after a weekend of claims and counterclaims around Hormuz. Credit's calm, oil's nervous, and the bond market votes every day - this episode shows how I read each gauge, and what would change my mind.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/reading-the-dashboard

Not financial advice.

Saturday is homework day - the least glamorous part of this project, and probably the most useful. Every week, my two readers of the market (one sticks to the numbers, one reads the news) publish their expectations, and every week they get graded against what actually happened, misses included. This episode is the scorecard: the calls, the grades, and where the readers got it wrong. An honest public track record is the strongest thing an anonymous account can offer.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/grading-my-own-homework

Not financial advice.

A friend texted me Friday morning: is today a big deal? By the close, the S&P 500 was down 1.09%, the Nasdaq down 2.14%, the VIX had spiked above 22 before settling at 19.99, and oil had jumped to $101.41 on attacks near the Strait of Hormuz. This episode is the alarm check: what my dashboard's smoke detectors actually said, what an alarm does and doesn't tell you, and how to read a day like this without flinching - or shrugging.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/fridays-alarm

Not financial advice.

Wholesale prices jumped 1.3% in a single month - 6.3% over the year, energy up almost 11%, gasoline about 20%. An ugly report. So why did the market close green? One number: the 10-year Treasury yield, which fell about a tenth of a point to 5.09%. This episode explains what that yield really is - the price of waiting - and why bonds, not stocks, did the heavy lifting today.

Read the article: https://that70sda.substack.com/p/the-number-that-saved-today-was-509

Not financial advice.