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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.

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