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 Warm-Up
- WAR! (or is it?)
- Tesla Robotaxi Update
- Japan's rice problem
- Drink up! New guidelines coming...

Markets
- Not phased by Iranian attack - (well planned attack for markets - timing, newsflow and narrative of "successful mission")
- A ceasefire now - quick wars!
- P/E forward nearing 22
- Leading indicators - dropping
- VERY Resilient overall - dips are for buying
- NASDAQ 100 closing in on all-time highs - triple top

Dropping the F Bomb - 7am CNBC
- " Two counties that have been that have been fighting so long and so hard that they do not know what the "F***ck" they are doing"

Oil
- Drops from high of $78 to $66
- Iran bombing news spikes the price on Sunday night - and then....free fall....

Tesla
- Everyone is a flutter about the RoboTaxi test in Austin
- Stock moved up 10% on the news Monday
-- Everyone knows it is a long haul - but the hope and the promise is something that investors live on
- Tesla Robotaxis spotted speeding, making improper turns on first day of service, according to Bloomberg

HAMMER
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine, in a news conference Sunday, reviewed operational details of Saturday’s “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the well-concealed strikes against nuclear development facilities in Iran that both men called an “incredible and overwhelming success.”
- “We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” President Donald Trump said Saturday.
- Bunker Buster Bombs - lots of them
- Was it a success?
-- Monday: Iran coordinated the attacks on U.S. base in Qatar and gave officials advance warning to minimize casualties

Interesting
- Online job listing company CareerBuilder + Monster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.

Leading Indicators
- A measure of future U.S. economic activity fell in May for the sixth straight month and triggered a recession signal, held down by consumer pessimism, weak new orders for manufactured goods, an uptick in jobless benefits claims and a drop in building permit applications.
- The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index fell by 0.1% to 99.0 last month after a downwardly revised 1.4% drop in April, which was the largest decline in the index since the spring of 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline matched the consensus expectation among economists polled by Reuters.
- "With the substantial negatively revised drop in April and the further downtick in May, the six-month growth rate of the Index has become more negative, triggering the recession signal," she said.
"The Conference Board does not anticipate recession, but we do expect a significant slowdown in economic growth in 2025 compared to 2024, with real GDP growing at 1.6% this year and persistent tariff effects potentially leading to further deceleration in 2026."

Global Rates and Central Banks - Update

World Rates

Japan's Rice Problem
- Rice prices in Japan more than doubled in May, spiking 101.7% year over year and marking their largest increase in over half a century.
- The huge spike follows a 98.4% increase in April, and a rise of 92.1% year over year in March.
- Japan’s rice prices have been in the spotlight in recent times, with the government releasing emergency stockpiles to moderate the price of the country’s staple food.
- The surge in rice prices comes as Japan’s core inflation rate climbed to 3.7% in May, marking its highest level since January 2023.
- The figure — which strips out costs for fresh food — was higher than the 3.6% expected by economists polled by Reuters, and is above April’s reading of 3.5%.

Since Warren's Announcement
- That retreat translates into roughly fifteen percentage points of underperformance versus the benchmark?S&P?500 index over the period since the announcement
-  Analysts attribute a sizable portion of the decline to the fading of the so?called “Buffett premium” that had been embedded in Berkshire’s valuation for decades.
- Note: Operating earnings, which capture performance at wholly owned insurance, railroad, energy, and manufacturing subsidiaries, fell fourteen?percent year over year to?$9.64?billion - so there is that too...

Drink Up!
- The U.S. government is expected to eliminate from its dietary guidelines the long-standing recommendation that adults limit alcohol consumption to one or two drinks per day, according to three sources familiar with the matter
- The updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which could be released as early as this month, are expected to include a brief statement encouraging Americans to drink in moderation or limit alcohol intake due to associated health risks.

Fed Rate Decision
- The U.S. central bank held interest rates steady and policymakers signaled that borrowing costs are still likely to fall this year.
- But Powell cautioned against putting too much weight on that, saying he expects "meaningful" inflation ahead from the Trump administration's tariffs.
- "No one holds these ... rate paths with a great deal of conviction, and everyone would agree that they're all going to be data dependent," Powell said.
- In new economic projections, policymakers sketched a modestly stagflationary picture of the economy, with growth in 2025 slowing to 1.4%, unemployment rising to 4.5% and inflation ending the year at 3%, well above the current level.
- Policymaker projections show two rate cuts still seen in 2025
- Year-end inflation projection higher at 3%, growth lower at 1.4%

AI for Marketers
- Reddit announced a “listening tool” called Reddit Insights, which shares real-time insights with marketers to help them identify trends and launch campaigns.
- The other tool, called Conversation Summary Add-ons, allows brands to show “positive” user content under their ads.
- Following the Meta (Facebook) move to have AI run marketing campaigns (cutting out the middle man)
- “These are tools for a new era of community marketing, one where brands can tap into Reddit’s authenticity and connect meaningfully with high-intent communities around the world,” the company wrote.
- Sounds like they are just preying on free-userbase

Airlines - Cutting Routes
- U.S. carriers have announced plans to trim capacity, particularly in the second half of the year, as bookings for domestic travel came in weaker than expected this year and fares fell.
- Airfare in May was down 7.3% compared with last year, according to U.S. Department of Labor’s inflation report.
- JetBlue and other airlines pulled their 2025 financial forecasts, citing economic uncertainty that executives said made it difficult to predict demand.
- JetBlue will further cut off-peak flights and trim unprofitable routes. It will also pause plans to retrofit four of its older Airbus A320 jets with new interiors and park them, while the six remaining jets slated for the refurbishment are still on track for next year

Canva
- Canva has grown into a $32 billion startup through its popular design tools used for easily creating images, marketing material and presentations.
- Now the company, with its 12th acquisition, is buying its way into the analytics market.
- Canva said on Tuesday that it’s buying MagicBrief, whose technology is used for analyzing ad performance, for an undisclosed sum. With MagicBrief, companies can track spending and engagement on their ads and see what’s working well for competitors.
- Around 240 million people use Canva’s products, which compete with offerings from Adobe’s
Creative Cloud.

Trump Phone
- Donald Trump's family business licensed its name to launch a U.S. mobile service and a $499 smartphone on Monday, calling it Trump Mobile, in the latest deal brokered by the president's children to capitalize on his last name while he is in office.
- The new mobile venture, announced at Trump Tower in Manhattan, will operate using the networks of the three major U.S. wireless carriers.
- The phone will likely be produced by a Chinese original device manufacturer, one analyst says.
- The phone is advertised to have a 6.8-inch AMOLED display and 50-megapixel camera.

Retail Sales
- Consumer spending pulled back sharply in May, weighed down by declining gas sales and looming unease over where the economy is headed, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
- Retail sales declined 0.9%, even more than the 0.6% drop expected from the Dow Jones consensus, according to numbers adjusted for seasonality but not inflation. The decline followed a 0.1% loss in April and came at a time of unease over tariffs and geopolitical tensions. Sales rose 3.3% from a year ago.
-Excluding autos, sales fell 0.3%, also worse than the estimate for a gain of 0.1%.

China Data
- Retail sales jumped 6.4% from a year earlier in May, sharply beating analysts’ estimates for a 5% growth and accelerating from the 5.1% growth in the previous month.
- Growth in industrial output slowed to 5.8% year-on-year in May, slightly weaker than analysts’ expectations for a 5.9% rise.
- Fixed-asset investment, reported on a year-to-date basis, expanded 3.7% this year as of May from a year earlier.
- he urban survey-based unemployment rate in May came in at 5.0%, the lowest level since November last year.

Greenpeace and Bezos
- Global environmental lobby Greenpeace added its voice on Monday to protests against this week's celebrity wedding in Venice between American tech billionaire Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez.
- "The problem is not the wedding, the problem is the system. We think that one big billionaire can't rent a city for his pleasure," Simona Abbate, one of the protesters, told Reuters.

 

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