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Warm-Up
- Torn Meniscus - that is what they say... now what?
- The beginning of UBI as a response from the AI boom?
- Black in packaging - byproduct of war
- Insights into consumer confidence reports

Markets
- Up up and away!
- New inflation data is in...
- The Circular Economy - Great chart....
- Some inflation facts
- From the TACO trade to the NACHO trade

The new CTP for Salesforce is open for entries!

From TACO to NACHO
- Not A Chance Hormuz Opens
- - New phrase being used in the oil pits and trading floors

Life Support
- President Trump tells reporters that ceasefire with Iran is on "massive life support"; says Iran's peace proposal was a "piece of garbage"

Going to CHYNA
- President Donald Trump has invited executives from some of the biggest U.S. companies — including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg — to join his trip to China this week, according to a White House official.
- Also expected to join Trump’s delegation for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping are Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Coherent’s Jim Anderson, GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp Jr., Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon, Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen, Mastercard’s Michael Miebach, Meta Platforms executive Dina Powell McCormick, Micron Technology’s Sanjay Mehrotra, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Visa’s Ryan McInerney, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the list has not been announced.
- Jensen Huang supposedly not invited

Inflation Report Today
- Total CPI increased 0.6% month-over-month in April, as expected, following a 0.9% increase in March. That left total CPI up 3.8% year-over-year versus 3.3% in March.
- Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, jumped 0.4% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus: 0.4%) following a 0.2% increase in March. That left core - CPI up 2.8% year-over-year versus 2.6% in March.
----Key Factors
- The food index was up 0.5% month-over-month and up 3.2% year-over-year.
- The energy index was up 3.8% month-over-month and up 17.9% year-over-year.
- The shelter index was up 0.6% month-over-month and up 3.3% year-over-year.
- The used cars and trucks index was flat month-over-month and down 2.7% year-over-year.
- The apparel index was up 0.6% month-over-month and up 4.2% year-over-year.
- The services index was up 0.6% month-over-month and up 3.4% year-over-year (services less rent of shelter was up 3.5% year-over-year).
- The all items index less food, shelter, and energy was up 0.2% month-over-month and up 2.3% year-over-year.

Consumer Confidence
- Surging gas prices due to the Iran war sent consumer sentiment to a new low in the early part of May, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday.
“Taken together, consumers continue to feel buffeted by cost pressures, led by soaring prices at the pump,” the survey’s director, Joanne Hsu, said.
- The latest University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment preliminary reading for May came in at 48.2, below the 50.5 consensus estimate and below the prior 49.8 final reading for April.
---Note: Conference board's consumer confidence reading was actually better than last month so there is a discrepancy in reports.
- Conference Board measure as highly important because it is widely followed and often tied closely to labor-market perceptions, while the Michigan survey is also closely watched for inflation-sensitive consumer attitudes.

Thwarted!
- Google’s Threat Intelligence Group said hackers are using AI models such as OpenClaw to uncover and exploit zero-day software vulnerabilities.
- GTIG said it has “high confidence” that it recorded hackers using an AI model to find and exploit a zero-day vulnerability, or a software flaw unknown to developers, creating a way to bypass two-factor authentication.
-The group said in a report that it had uncovered and likely thwarted an AI-developed attack.
- Anthropic delayed its Mythos model rollout due to cybersecurity concerns, but current models are being used by hackers.
- How are we going to stop the hackers from using powerful AI models to hack?

Circular Economy
- Great Graphic

Circular

Always Money to be made...
- US derivatives exchange CME Group Inc. and index provider Silicon Data are teaming up to create a futures market for computing power.
- The futures will help traders, financial firms, AI builders and cloud providers manage volatility and price swings, according to a statement.
- CME CEO Terry Duffy said compute is "the new oil of the 21st century" and creating a futures market can help make the costs more transparent.
----- One more way to pump this as now there is ways to further inflate costs through a leveraged futures market

Private Credit Transparency?
- Faster mark-to-market plans
- Apollo Global Management Inc. has been stepping up efforts to provide liquidity and price transparency in the private-credit market, where assets don’t typically change hands.
- Last week, the firm said more than $830 billion of its credit assets will be priced daily by the end of September. "
- Others in the industry are not so happy about this.
- Most say that this is little more that lipstick on a pig

No Problem
- Congress is looking to suspend the federal gas tax for a few months
- Trump backing
- $0.18 per gallon tax in a effort to reduce gas prices that are now approx $4.40 average per gallon higher than before the war
- War not changed, Iran still stringing us along.
- Under/Over how long it will take until next Ceasefire bombings start?
- Will a sprinkle of warfare prior to China visit be in the cards as a show of strength?

AI Jobs
- Kevin Hassett says that AI isn't costing anybody their jobs rights now
- EVEN THOUGH TECH CONTINUES LAYOFFS
- Why bother even listening to these guys?
- Major deep discussion on this on TDI Podcast this week
-- WORTH THE LISTEN

Asian Markets
- Continuing to brush off any worries about oil prices, escalation or valuations that are in the stratosphere
- Korea - as we discussed this would be the case is up a staggering 78% last year and already up 81% this year
- Market cap has increased $2.7 trillion over the past year
- The massive wealth increase has been heavily concentrated. Tech giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accounted for the vast majority of the gains, with individual rallies of up to 382% over the year.

Strange
- The retail trades added nearly 22,000 jobs in April, accounting for almost one-fifth of total job growth.
- In March, retailers posted their largest number of monthly job openings since 2023.
- Retailers are more confident after seeing consumers keep their wallets open in the face of an uncertain economy and higher gas prices.
- Nearly 15.5 million employees now hold retail industry jobs, the most since July 2024.
- What is strange is the UMich confidence hit another all-time low last Friday for the latest prelim reading for the month

ANALlysts
- The earnings upgrades for tech are not just incremental
- Examples:
-  Seagate Tech target raised to $1000 from $750 at Evercore ISI, cites HAMR-driven multi-year HDD growth, pricing power, and strong AI/data center demand backdrop
- AMD - Goldman Sachs upgraded to Buy and raised its price target dramatically (e.g., to $450 from $240). Other firms like Bernstein (to $525), Barclays, KeyBanc, TD Cowen, and Baird also hiked targets significantly (many by $200+)
- Several other names upgrades with big ranges of price increases

UBI Starting...?
- South Korea should consider institutional ways to redistribute potential excess tax revenue generated by the AI infrastructure boom to help ease inequalities that could deepen in an AI-driven era, a top presidential policy aide said.
- President Kim proposed the principle, tentatively named a “national dividend,” underlining that gains from AI infrastructure should be understood as the product of South Korea’s collectively built industrial foundation.
- In his Facebook post on Monday, Kim explained that "the central question of the AI era is not simply about growth rates, but about how to socially stabilize excess profits."

Black ink
- Calbee to switch its brightly colored packaging to black and white because war has disrupted supply of certain raw materials used in ink
- Calbee, whose potato chip brands in particular are known for brightly colored bag designs, said 14 of its products would switch to monochrome branding by the end of May.
- Printing ink requires naphtha, an oil derivative for which Japan relies on imports from the Middle East for about 40% of its consumption.

Black Ink Printing

HantaVirus
- Tristan da Cunha, home to only around 200 people, is halfway between South Africa and South America. It is the world's remotest inhabited island, more than 2,400 km and a six-day boat ride from St Helena, its nearest inhabited neighbor.
- It usually relies on a medical team of two people for its health needs, and is normally only accessible by boat as it has no airstrip.
- A British man was dropped from the death ship was there and has the symptoms - so "out of an abundance of caution...."
- "The arrival of paratroopers, medical personnel and medical supplies from the sky has hopefully reassured the people of Tristan da Cunha," said Brigadier Ed Cartwright, Officer Commanding 16 Air Assault Brigade.
- Does this give comfort that paratroopers dropping in with hazmat suits?

 

 

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