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Warm-Up
- Excitement over a change in tone from Powell (Powell throws the towel?)
- Crypto surges - then comes back down
- SOE - Get used to that
- Bond yields - Long bond up

Markets
- Hitting all-time highs
- Airline consolidation or murder?
- NVDA earnings - reports this week
- Some crypto really moving

Fed Firing
- How do we feel about the firing of Fed's Cook?
- Allegations, not confirmed
- Could this be a play to actually fire Powell?
--- Trump now says that this paves the way to him having a majority that soon will push rate lower (after firing Cook)

Windless
- Shutting down the alt-energy projects
- Wind turbines ugly and no good
- Shares in wind farm developer Orsted
- The U.S. government last week ordered the company to halt construction of an almost completed project.
- Late on Friday the U.S.? Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had issued a stop-work order for the Revolution Wind Project off of Rhode Island. According to Orsted, the project is 80% complete and 45 out of 65 wind turbines have been installed

Pricing Power
- News that Spotify will raise prices as it invests in new features and targets 1 billion users
- said the price will rise to 11.99 euros ($14.05) from 10.99 euros in markets including South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
- Price increases combined with cost-cutting efforts in recent years helped Spotify achieve its first annual profit last year.

Jackson Holy !!
- Powell hinted that maybe there would be a change to his thinking
- In his final address as Fed chair at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, economic symposium, Powell hinted at a September interest rate cut but stopped short of committing, striking a careful balance between mounting job-market risks and lingering inflation worries.
- In particular, the market was enthused by Mr. Powell's line noting that "with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance," which the market took as an open-mindedness to easing.
- The probability of a 25-basis point rate cut at the September FOMC meeting now stands at 83.1%, up from 75.0% yesterday, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Jackson - HOLY 2
- Markets reacted strongly in favor of a rate cut - hope
- DJIA up 800 - S&P and NASDAQ rallied
- Small Caps up close to 4%
- USD dove
- Yields - slightly lower
- Crypto - ETHER rallied hard - ATH
---- Give it a day and Ether and Bitcoin came back down to earth

Misunderstanding
- Cut rates so houses more affordable?
- Long rates moved higher -

NVDA
- Earnings due Wednesday After the close
- Nvidia makes up about 7.5% of the S&P 500.
- Earnings Per Share (EPS) Estimates
Zacks Consensus: $1.00
Kiplinger Forecast: $1.01, up 48.5% year-over-year
MarketBeat Average: $0.97 (range: $0.92–$1.05)
- Revenue Estimates
Zacks Consensus: $46.14 billion
Kiplinger Forecast: $46.0 billion, a 53.1% increase YoY
MarketBeat Range: $44.1–$45.9 billion
- Forward-Looking EPS
FY 2026: $4.28 (Zacks), $4.12 (MarketBeat)
FY 2027: $5.70 (Zacks)

SOE - State Owned Enterprises
- We had better get use to it
- All the anger directed at China for this - as unfair practice
- Now, US takes a piece of Intel (10% for $2B ?)
- Wait - 10% is $10B value - is that right?

Intel Math (MATH?)
- The U.S. government acquired a 10% stake in Intel by converting $11.1 billion in previously issued grants and pledges into equity.
- It received 433.3 million non-voting shares priced at $20.47 each, totaling an initial valuation of $8.9 billion
- At the time of the deal, Intel's stock was trading at $24.80, giving the government's stake an immediate paper gain of $1.9 billion, bringing the current estimated value of the stake to approximately $11 billion

Spirit Doomed?
- Frontier on Tuesday announced 20 routes it plans to start this winter, many of them in major Spirit markets like its base at Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida.
- Frontier overlaps with Spirit on 35% of its capacity, more than any other airline
- Spirit lost $245million in the 2nd quarter - Frontier $70 million
- This could be the last hoorah for Spirit
- Maybe US Government will buy into

Next Up
- - Lutnick now talking about possibly USA getting a piece of Defense contractors
- Lutnick: Lockheed Martin, which makes most of its revenue from federal contracts, is “basically an arm of the U.S. government,” he said.
- Trump administration military leaders are “thinking about” whether the U.S. should acquire equity stakes in top defense contractors, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

180 Degree Turn
- Cracker Barrel Kerfuffle
- Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on Monday issued a statement responding to the backlash it faced last week over its rebranding and new logo.
- “We could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be,” the restaurant chain said.
- Were people annoyed with the simple logo or why they removed the old man (old White Man Uncle Herschel)
--- OLD COUNTRY STORE was also removed
- Users on social media were quick to criticize the new logo, describing it as “generic,” “soulless” and “bland.”

Crypto
- BIG move post Powell
- Ether surged 15% late Friday, rising as high as $4,885.00 and surpassing its November 2021 record of $4,866.01
- The moves came during Powell’s annual address from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in which he indicated conditions “may warrant” interest rate cuts."
- Ethereum doubled over the past two months
- Only about 800,000 ETH is expected to be created over the next year, while institutional demand could reach $20 billion. This 7x demand-to-supply ratio is pushing prices higher

Apple and Google
- Apple in early discussions to use Google’s Gemini AI models for an updated version of the iPhone maker’s Siri assistant.
- HMMMM - The reported talks come as Google faces potential risk to its lucrative search deals with Apple.
- This month, a U.S. judge is expected to rule on the penalties for Google’s alleged search monopoly, in which the Department of Justice recommends eliminating exclusionary agreements with third parties.

META and Google
- Google won a $10 billion cloud contract from Meta spanning six years, according to two people familiar with the matter.
- Meta has largely been reliant on Amazon Web Services for cloud infrastructure though it also uses Microsoft Azure.
-

Furniture Tariffs
- President Donald Trump threatened Friday to impose tariffs on furniture, adding to his levies on specific products and commodities.
Stocks for some furniture and home goods companies, including Wayfair, RH and Williams-Sonoma, tumbled after the market close, following Trump’s post.
- “Within the next 50 days, that Investigation will be completed, and Furniture coming from other Countries into the United States will be Tariffed at a Rate yet to be determined,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “This will bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union.”
- Vietnam markets do not care - Up 55% since April low, 30% since just before tariff announcement.
- Beneficiary of the China hate?

 

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