Investing

[pfife]

Uh huh

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

But, but tariffs….

 

Ever heard the one about you get 2 economists in a room and you get 3 opinions? Here is Fed Governor Micheal Barr on 2/17:

Quote

Turning to the other component of our mandate, inflation based on personal consumption expenditures remains elevated at 3 percent, about where it was a year ago. Disinflation, which started in mid-2022, slowed last year, as goods price inflation picked up, in large part due to tariffs. That pattern appeared to continue in the inflation data released last week. Looking ahead, it is reasonable to forecast that tariff effects on inflation will begin to abate later this year, but there are many reasons to be concerned that inflation will remain elevated. I see the risk of persistent inflation above our 2 percent target as significant, which means we need to remain vigilant.

Speech by Governor Barr on artificial intelligence and the labor market - Federal Reserve Board

Edited February 19 by gehringer_2

[Deleterious]

The fact they are debating if it will or won't be 2% seems like a win for tariffs.  I know I was wrong predicting much higher inflation.

The interesting thing to me is what happens when the left regains the White House.  The way they have railed against tariffs, you would assume they would all be stricken from the books at 12:01PM on January 20th.  But government doesn't have a long history of giving up revenue streams like that.  So we'll see what happens.  

[Deleterious]

I think a member of the British Royal Family was just arrested for insider trading.

Former Prince Andrew Arrested Amid Epstein Probe

Quote

The arrest isn’t linked to allegations of sexual misconduct but to Mountbatten-Windsor’s role as trade envoy for the British government. The emails suggested that, as trade envoy, he on several occasions emailed confidential government reports to Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor quit that role in 2011. Police said last week they were looking into the reports that he may have run afoul of laws governing conduct in a public office.

 

[Tigeraholic1]

1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

I think a member of the British Royal Family was just arrested for insider trading.

Former Prince Andrew Arrested Amid Epstein Probe

 

We freely allow it here in the U.S. In fact we encourage our elected officials to do it. Just ask Nancy Pelosi. 🙂

Edited February 19 by Tigeraholic1

[Screwball]

How about a little chart porn, just for fun. First the S&P 500 6 month chart by day. The yellow arrows are Fed rate cuts. Going back to October 25 the big long red candle established that price range. It has now established another above that, and tried to break out above, but has failed. Looks like the pigmen of Wall Street loved the volatility.

On the other hand - the MAGS. Same time frame.

[Deleterious]

OK.  Let me know how that turns out

Tim Cook Warned by CIA That China Could Move on Taiwan by 2027

[chasfh]

So, in addition to dumping PLTR, which I got completely out of when it fell through 153.24 last month, in the past two days I've been dumped completely out of IBM (252.44) and MSFT (382.01). I put trailing stop limit sell orders on those, same as PLTR, so I could take profits.

All I have left of those big tech companies I've had for the past couple year is GOOG, which already sold some at 310.69 a few weeks ago, and will sell again at 294.13 and finally at 276.62, if it doesn't go back up and push those trailing stops up with it. That will pretty much get me out of the stocks I had bought two to three years ago to obtain a stake in AI.

I have re-expressed some of these proceeds into small positions in a number of stocks in other leading-edge technologies like space infrastructure, satellite connectivity, nuclear/SMR, grid modernization, robotics, and metabolic health. I was looking at maybe putting down a stake in quantum computing, but it's probably too soon in the industry life cycle for that. I set down an initial amount in mid-January, and am buying in tranches this month and next month to complete the stake. So far the whole basket is up +3%, even though only four of the ten positions in total are up.

 

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

All I have left of those big tech companies ....

 

I'm out on the Mags as well. Have some individuals I still like and picked up some Euro stock indexes to diversify some more and a lot of short term Treas for the time being.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I'm out on the Mags as well. Have some individuals I still like and picked up some Euro stock indexes to diversify some more and a lot of short term Treas for the time being.

Definitely looking into Stoxx 600.

[Deleterious]

This is just a $200 billion plot to increase my RAM and hard drive prices.

 

[Screwball]

A little more chart porn. Today was NVDA day. It looks to be insignificant after the earnings report and conference call. The different shaded part on the right is after hours. 

Looking at it from a more historical view, the price hasn't done much in the last 4 to 5 months.

Bonus porn; the S&P - 1 year by day. Vertical yellow arrows Fed rate cuts, horizontal yellow a gap that will eventually fill. The gray bubbles are the high and low for the year time frame.

 

 

 

 

[Deleterious]

$68 billion in revenue and data centers were $62 billion of that.  So 90% of their revenue comes from data centers.

75% gross margins makes me very jealous.  

Next quarter guidance is $78 billion in revenue.

 

[Screwball]

How Much Did AI Spending Contribute to Fourth-Quarter 2025 GDP?

FTA:

Quote

Nearly the entire fourth quarter GDP was AI related.

How long can this go on?

[Deleterious]

This bubble is a bit different from the dot com bubble IMO.  

The dot com bubble was almost exclusively funded by debt.  Nobody was making money back then and some of the transactions were just stupid.  Mark Cuban selling broadcast.com for $5 billion and Yahoo did absolutely nothing with it.  That bubble burned hot and fast.

The AI bubble does have some debt funded ventures.  But a lot of the big players are companies like Google, MSFT, Amazon, even Grok is now funded by profits from SpaceX, or mostly from Starlink if we're being honest.  

None of those companies make a profit directly on AI.  But they all make dump trucks full of money in other areas.  That money didn't exist in the dot com bubble era.  So this one has a lot more sustainability and won't burn out as fast.

[Deleterious]

 

[Deleterious]

Block (formerly Square) announced they were laying off almost half of their employees, about 4,000 people. Their stock is up 27% after hours.

[Screwball]

8 hours ago, Deleterious said:

This bubble is a bit different from the dot com bubble IMO.  

The dot com bubble was almost exclusively funded by debt.  Nobody was making money back then and some of the transactions were just stupid.  Mark Cuban selling broadcast.com for $5 billion and Yahoo did absolutely nothing with it.  That bubble burned hot and fast.

The AI bubble does have some debt funded ventures.  But a lot of the big players are companies like Google, MSFT, Amazon, even Grok is now funded by profits from SpaceX, or mostly from Starlink if we're being honest.  

None of those companies make a profit directly on AI.  But they all make dump trucks full of money in other areas.  That money didn't exist in the dot com bubble era.  So this one has a lot more sustainability and won't burn out as fast.

I agree with you, for the most part. We had an old saying in corporate America; it's the same, but different. I think that applies here. Another bubble (the same), but blown a different way (the different). I do think it has more financial integrity than the dot-com bubble.

When you look at the bigger picture, the massive capital expenditures to build data centers, chips, computer stuff, and the infrastructure to do so is incredible, no doubt. As well what it will take to build them. I talked to a guy a few months ago who was laying concrete somewhere in Southern Ohio that had 8 semi-truck sized generators running 24/7/365 to power a data center that isn't even done yet. 

But...At the end of the day, what's the goal? Data centers are what powers the AI stuff. Like super horsepower search engines. The centers themselves do not employ a huge amount of people, but they suck up a bunch of power, water, and will no doubt contribute to increasing our utility bills.

The real goal of AI, which couldn't happen without all this, is to eliminate jobs. Zero's and ones. Binary language that eventually became the connection between humans and technology. Once we can train something to do our physical work (robots), our customer service interaction, or any task the corporation decides they can replace people with AI. Cha-ching. We are now selling AI as a solution to run our businesses.

This AI stuff will work until it doesn't. 

I make a point of going to the local ****hole bar around 3:30 when a bunch of local factory workers come in. I get to hear their horror stories, both worker bees and management. Cornhole is ripe with small companies who supply the auto industry, or the big appliance company out of Michigan, also known as WHR.

All ain't well in Mudville, according to the worker bees. Shutdowns coming, days off, no pay. Checked with a boss bee who worked for another company. Same. People who makes parts for the big three are walking on towels on the floor soaked with hydraulic fluid leaking from the machines they have to run. That's nuts - but a sure sign of a company that is very poorly ran - and about to go broke - or sued into oblivion.

AI is all about replacing jobs. While **** like that goes on, and maybe why. Small example, but true everywhere. I lived in the beast. This is nothing new, just different.

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, Screwball said:

People who makes parts for the big three are walking on towels on the floor soaked with hydraulic fluid leaking from the machines they have to run. That's nuts - but a sure sign of a company that is very poorly ran - and about to go broke - or sued into oblivion

Deferred maintenance because margins are too thin? One step from there to injuries and shutdowns. 

I don't know how many times I had the conversation with a suit. "You are telling me it's going to fail - will it be tomorrow?" If I couldn't given him a statistically derived proof that it was he didn't care, and when most of the specialized equipment in the plant are "One-of" being run in ways they were never run before, there is no such thing as those kinds of statistics. So they run till they don't, and for want a day or two to do maintenance, you lose the whole operation for who knows how long. The maintenance guys go to 12hr shifts and everyone else goes home.

 

....And the tech staff gets blamed anyway!

Edited 12 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

Last year a girl slipped due to oil on the concrete floor and busted her hand. She was off work for several months. How can that happen to begin with? Where is maintenance? Where is OSHA? Did anyone call them? They sure as hell should, but the girls tell me nobody cares. They also need a job, and are afraid of losing it. So they STFU.

They told me today they are still walking on towels in front of their machines.

So sad. Maybe we can bring back child labor and textile mills.

[Screwball]

9 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Last year a girl slipped due to oil on the concrete floor and busted her hand. She was off work for several months. How can that happen to begin with? Where is maintenance? Where is OSHA? Did anyone call them? They sure as hell should, but the girls tell me nobody cares. They also need a job, and are afraid of losing it. So they STFU.

They told me today they are still walking on towels in front of their machines.

So sad. Maybe we can bring back child labor and textile mills.

Well, to be honest, they never left (pun intended), we just sent the jobs to China, India, and any other third world county where there are no slave labor laws, environmental awareness, safety, and next to no pay. They even feature workplaces with nets so the workers wouldn't go splat on the ground because it was better than working 20 hours a day.

But we don't see that here. We have Chinamarts, Amazon, and a credit card. So it's all good.

[Deleterious]

 

[CMRivdogs]

Yacko, Wacko and Dot will soon be homeless thanks to the antics of Pinkey and the Brain. 

Coming to Paramount  soon Startrek: Landman