Investing

[Screwball]

The latest news we were talking about reminded me of this.  A classic IMO. From 1976.

 

[Deleterious]

TECH DOJ and SEC charge social media influencers in alleged $100 million stock pump-and-dump scheme

[Deleterious]

This is odd.

Early Benchmark Revisions of State Payroll Employment

Quote

Estimates by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia indicate that the employment changes from March through June 2022 were significantly different in 33 states and the District of Columbia compared with current state estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Current Employment Statistics (CES). Early benchmark estimates indicated higher changes in four states, lower changes in 29 states and the District of Columbia, and lesser changes in the remaining 17 states.

Our estimates incorporate more comprehensive, accurate job estimates released by the BLS as part of its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program to augment the sample data from the BLS’s CES that are issued monthly on a timely basis. All percentage change calculations are expressed as annualized rates. Read more about our methodology. Learn more about interpreting our early benchmark estimates.

In the aggregate, 10,500 net new jobs were added during the period rather than the 1,121,500 jobs estimated by the sum of the states; the U.S. CES estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period.

 

[chasfh]

On 12/14/2022 at 2:46 PM, gehringer_2 said:

yeah - that was not a good response. You have feel for anyone in that job - you go up there never knowing what kind of land mines are out there, but she could have just said - "yes that is interesting and we are going to look into it". 20/20 hindsight of course

Saying “we are going to look into it” would obligate the White House in a way they don’t want and keep the issue alive for much longer, because they will continue to be questioned on it until they eventually still have to say “there’s too much weight being put into that.” Then they get criticized not only for “concluding” this, but for dragging it out.

By saying this when she did, she takes the hit now and it heals faster once the media starts chasing the latest laser pointer light.

[chasfh]

On 12/12/2022 at 8:06 PM, Screwball said:

What took so long? Speaking tours?

What a complete shit show.

This will go nowhere. It wouldn't surprise me if this creep skates.

In the big picture, it really doesn't matter anyway. Laws are only for us little people, and in this case there isn't enough leverage to hurt the Swine Banksters, so, maybe, the only people who get fucked are the dumb asses who bought into this bullshit. That would be good.

Dumb asses

SBF won’t skate. He’s going away for the rest of his natural life, and who knows, maybe for a few years beyond that. He’ll probably end up in the same cell block as Bernie Madoff.

[Screwball]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

SBF won’t skate. He’s going away for the rest of his natural life, and who knows, maybe for a few years beyond that. He’ll probably end up in the same cell block as Bernie Madoff.

Bernie Madoff is dead.

[gehringer_2]

17 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Bernie Madoff is dead.

I suppose you could call a coffin a small cell. 

🤔

[chasfh]

29 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Bernie Madoff is dead.

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

He’ll probably end up in the same cell block as Bernie Madoff.

... was in before he died.

[chasfh]

Point is, no way is SBF skating on this.

[Screwball]

On 12/14/2022 at 3:13 PM, Screwball said:

After all the stuttering, she said the "market moved in a minor way."

I highlighted the 8:29 am candle. Above the red boxes show the time, open, and close.

By my math, that is a 40 point move in the /ES (S&P futures market) in that minute.  That is NOT a minor move when the price was $4056.75 at 8:27 am. Someone knew, and somoene(s) spent some serious cash to do that.

US Statistics Agency Says ‘No Evidence’ of Hack on CPI Report - From Bloomberg

"No evidence?"  WTF?????? Didn't look very hard did you.

FTA:

Quote

“There is no evidence that our IT systems were in any way compromised,” said Karen Ransom, division chief of the division of publishing services at BLS. “And we do continuously monitor for suspicious activity and have detected none.”

There doesn't have to be any evidence your IT systems were compromised - it's a fucking leak dumbass.

 

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, Screwball said:

US Statistics Agency Says ‘No Evidence’ of Hack on CPI Report - From Bloomberg

"No evidence?"  WTF?????? Didn't look very hard did you.

FTA:

There doesn't have to be any evidence your IT systems were compromised - it's a fucking leak dumbass.

 

LOL - classic strawman spin rhetoric though. Set up a non-relevant or marginally relevant piece you can shoot down and call it a day.

Edited December 16, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL - classic strawman spin rhetoric though. Set up a non-relevant or marginally relevant piece you can shoot down and call it a day.

That (the IT thing) is about the most piss poor answer you could come up with.  Of course there seemed to be no further questions from anyone either. Imagine that. And we even have pictures (chart porn)...

Who knew, and when did they know it?

I would think the Keystone Cops could solve this one.

[Screwball]

<deleted>

Edited December 17, 2022 by Screwball

[Deleterious]

Not sure which one.  But one of the current large auto makers is going to mess up the transition to EV's and end up going out of business.

Toyota Chief Says ‘Silent Majority’ Has Doubts About Pursuing Only EVs

[Screwball]

I have to believe this transition is a nightmare for the process people. If a company has to tool up for new products they either build something new, or replace lines they already have under roof. Either way, time consuming, and expensive. Then make them productive.

There will no doubt be casualties.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

Not sure which one.  But one of the current large auto makers is going to mess up the transition to EV's and end up going out of business.

Toyota Chief Says ‘Silent Majority’ Has Doubts About Pursuing Only EVs

I wonder how much of the "we will be all EV by date 'X'" coming from manufacturers is more than political PR for them. I will wager they will keep building what is selling even as they ramp up EV capacity.

OTOH - I can't figure out WTF Toyota thinks they are talking about with hydrogen powered cars. Whenever someone mentions Hydrogen, run the other way because they almost certainly don't know what they are talking about. There is NO hydrogen available to use as motor fuel and almost no prospect there ever will be. The only two routes to it at scale are to use natural gas, which gets you nowhere in terms of CO2, (and you can use the natual gas in a car just as easily as H2 without going to hydrogen)  or massive electical consumption for electrolysis, which is stupid since you can use the electicity in the car at multiples higher total energy cycle efficiency without ever going through all the intermediate steps (and losses) of converting watts to hydrogen and then back to mechanical energy, which the electricity basically is to begin with. The only practical route to any level of H2 use in the economy is nuclear power. If you don't see nuke plants going up, you can forget about hydrogen cars.

[Deleterious]

On 12/13/2022 at 4:38 PM, Deleterious said:

FTX founder charged in scheme to defraud crypto investors

So his girlfriend ran Alameda Research which was also involved in this.  I guess she was photographed in NYC a few days ago and rumors started to fly she is cooperating with authorities on this.

She is.

Caroline Ellison, Associate of FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Pleads Guilty to Criminal Charges

Quote

Two associates of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried have pleaded guilty for their roles in fraud that contributed to the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse and are cooperating with federal investigators.

Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, a trading firm tied to FTX, and Gary Wang, FTX’s former chief technology officer, both pleaded guilty to criminal offenses similar to those Mr. Bankman-Fried was charged with last week.  

 

[gehringer_2]

Weekly unemployment claims refuse to go up (216K), GDP refuses to go down (Q3 revised up to +3.2%). Market sees more interest rate hikes in its future. S&P bumping against 3800.

[Screwball]

On 12/16/2022 at 3:07 PM, Screwball said:

US Statistics Agency Says ‘No Evidence’ of Hack on CPI Report - From Bloomberg

"No evidence?"  WTF?????? Didn't look very hard did you.

FTA:

There doesn't have to be any evidence your IT systems were compromised - it's a fucking leak dumbass.

 

And there is more...  From Bloomberg again; It Takes a Lot to Keep Inflation Data Secret, Including NDAs

Interesting article on how the release process works, but in the end - nothing to see here.  I still call BS, and this shouldn't be a difficult thing to track/trace - if they wanted to.  But as usual, they don't.  Corrupt to the core.

[Deleterious]

I think "buying opportunity" gets thrown around way too much.  But, Apple at or near its 52 week low certainly is attractive.

[Screwball]

3 hours ago, Deleterious said:

I think "buying opportunity" gets thrown around way too much.  But, Apple at or near its 52 week low certainly is attractive.

This caught my attention.  Disclosure; I don't closely follow the tech sector, but I know they have had the shit kicked out of them - FANGS (or whatever the current acronym) and all.  So I did a little looking because I have one last beer to drink and and need something to do.

AAPL is in the Tech sector, and the consumer electronic industry.  Using your year timeframe above, let's take a look.

Sector;

 

Industry;

Another angle from Mish; What Company Will Be the Second to Lose $1 Trillion in Market Cap?  Some chart porn in that one.

If you go to Finviz and filter AAPL you can see the insider activity, upgrades, downgrades, and all the usual good stuff.  Great site.

Looking at AAPL's charts, it looks pretty simple to me. The chart below goes back 3 years. The support looks pretty obvious at this point. Watch the $128.79 level. The first potential confirmation was in June of this year ($129.04). Closed today at $131.86, with a low of $129.64.

So if one is interested in buying, now might be the time to do so. Or, around this time...

 

ON EDIT; How could I forget...

You could also see what Jim Cramer says and do the the opposite.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Screwball

[Deleterious]

This gives a lot of reasons why I like Apple.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4566064-apple-stock-3-reasons-invest-2023

Toss in I think they are one of the best run companies with the best CEO.

My biggest complaint is they have done nothing to develop their cloud services.  They are really falling behind Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc.

[chasfh]

So-o-o-o ... who's in for TSLA?

[gehringer_2]

at the current price it's almost possible for them to increase sales over time enough for their P/E to start looking normal without more drop in the share price. Telsa has always been priced as a magic beans company, but the truth is they are a car company - and the slide in price is mostly the adjustment in the view of investors from the one to the other. The fact that Elon is acting like a 2 yr old at Twitter doesn't help of course, but I think at most it's just hastened an inevitable reckoning.

[Deleterious]

Mark Cuban: Bitcoin Is a Good Investment, Gold Investors Are Dumb

Quote

“When you own gold, all you own is a digital transaction. You don’t own the gold bar,” Cuban detailed, emphasizing that investors do not actually possess the actual gold. “If everything went to hell in a handbasket and you had a gold bar, you know what would happen? Someone would beat the f*** out of you or kill you and take your gold bar,” the Shark Tank star warned.

Proof you do not need to be smart to be rich.  Cuban is the ultimate 'right place right time' guy.  Extremely lucky to have started his company during the dot com boom where people were throwing around crazy money to buy any type of internet company.

But he isn't even the dumbest guy on that TV show.

Quote

Meanwhile, Cuban’s Shark Tank co-star, Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has insisted that SBF is one of the best traders in the crypto space and he will back him again if he has another venture. O’Leary was a spokesperson for FTX when the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy.