"...Warren Buffet is washed up. I'm the captain, now" -- Dave Portnoy
For those that do not know Dave, he is one of the founders of "Barstool Sports". He sold a big stake to Penn National Gaming, got a BIG payout, and has been Day trading the proceeds. He has been on a bit of a roll for the past month and is declaring "Day Trading is easy money" and that, "Stocks only go up. Only losers take profits" and "Dave's rules of trading. Rule #1 Stocks only go up. Rule # 2 When in doubt, see rule #1" . A lot of the crazy trading in certain stocks and ETF's in the past month seem to be the result of Dave's regular updates about his trades. I fear for these people following Dave...
Dave.. I LOVE you as a Sports guy. You're website is GREAT... But, this isn't gonna end well. Stocks go up...until they don't .. this reminds me of a similar situation...
Back in the 1990's I was at a conference in NYC where 2 famous "Internet Analysts" in their 20's lectured the room full of investors how the "Old Guard Investors and Analysts were washed up". They bellowed how the Internet stocks were going to change the world and the Old investors didn't "Get it". It didn't matter that they weren't actually making money.
I happened to be sitting next to Legendary Investor (and quite quick witted, by the way) Michael Price. Not that we're friends. We just both arrived a few minutes late and it was a packed house.. He had just finished telling me how he was on the way to (Large US Bank that I don't want to mention) to buy a portfolio of non-performing loans for .20 on the dollar. As we listened to these young analysts insult the "washed up old school managers" (which, of course, would mean.. HIM) Price's face got redder and redder. Then it was his turn to present...He walked up to the stage from the back.. and OOHHH My did it get uncomfortable ....
Price took the stage and the two "twenty something Internet analysts" from, BIG name Wall Street Brokerage firms, were sitting in the front row in a hotel conference room of about 500 people. Price wasn't foaming from the mouth .. But it was close .. I am 99.9% sure he accidentally spit a few times.. but, again.. I was in the back reading over some notes he left on his chair....
Price FREAKED on these guys.. "I DON'T GET IT??? I DON'T GET IT??? . YOU DON'T GET IT !!!! .. Stocks that make NO MONEY going up 200-300% in a month? Companies trading at 500 times earnings with no legitimate business model??? Companies run by snake-oil salesmen and ex-cons? .. You two need to go read up on Dutch Tulip Mania. Most of the stocks you're pumping I would rather be SHORT.. Tell you what... you can come see me in a few years... if you still have jobs...WE'll see who DOESN'T GET IT !!!!" .......
It was ugly.. It was uncomfortable .. and it was at a CHARITY event!!!... and..
Of course..the Internet DID change the world .. but..a few years later the dot com bubble burst...and many many many of the "Dot Com" darlings went bankrupt....and those analysts were, in fact, out of work. ...So, be careful, Dave.
In Da News: "Police-Less in Seattle" (I wondered. Would anyone get that reference? Sleepless in Seattle? is that too far a reach??..then I saw Fox News is using it.. so.. at least ONE other person did..) .. Protesters have taken over city hall in Seattle and taken over a six block area and are now called an "autonomous zone" and no cops are allowed.. Police will only enter the zone for 911 Calls. They are "demanding the Mayor resign". President Trump has told the mayor to, "get control of your city, or I will." .. Uhh.. Sure.. this is fine.. nothing to see here.. should end well...
In Da Swamp: Sonny: "Giorgio. STOP breathin on me!!!.. Hey, Bobby. Put him in the Batroom." ..Bobby: "Sonny. Eddie Mush is in dair. He Ain't gonna fit" .. That was from the famous "Dice Scene" in the movie, "A Bronx Tale". .. Well .. that went to Washington. Prominent Virginia Democrat, Terry McAullife got caught saying, "Keep Biden in the basement." until the election. Obviously, this is embarrassing and suggests if Biden is "let out" of his basement office he will say something stupid and blow his chances of getting elected. He won't admit it.. but...McAullife is probably right...and...
The National Debt is now over $26 Trillion. Got that readers under 40..or 30 years old? That's gonna be YOUR problem. Not that the Feds should not have helped people through this pandemic .. it was the $22 Trillion that was ALREADY THERE that's the issue ... and..
The "Experts" keep warning that the Coronavirus problem is NOT over... The Loser Media keeps pumping the narrative, "Big Spikes in New cases" .. and.. are you seeing any evidence of hospitals being "overwhelmed"? I'm not.. Is it a bad virus that can kill old and sick people? Yup.. Does it kill a small amount of "otherwise healthy" people that are not over 70? Yes, a few. Is it an "Ebola like" disease that should shut down our Country for a few months every year? I'm going with NO..
19 Years ago, today the "Oklahoma City Bomber", Timothy McVeigh, was executed. On April 19, 1995 McVeigh drove a truck with fertilizer explosives to the Alfred P Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City and detonated it, killing 168 people. McVeigh and his partner, Terry Nichols, were angry at the Federal Government over the handling of "Ruby Ridge" and other things. He was executed by lethal injection June 11, 2001.
SPORTS: "QUIET ON THE TEE! .. The 7:01 tee time is up"... and
HERE WE GO .. Live Sports is BACK with the start of the Charles Schwab Challege at Colonial inTexas. Will I be watching all day at work? WHAT DO YOU THINK???? .. Will the players look around expecting cheers after a great shot? Will they instinctively wave to the crowd (that isn't there) ??? I WANNA KNOW !!!!
MLB: What's in a name? I guess we're gonna find out. The #1 pick in this year's MLB Draft is, "Spencer Torkelson". Sounds almost like a 70's sitcom. "Dinner with the Torkelson's".. Im sure when he makes $100 million he'll get over Raj making fun of his name ..
US Soccer has repealed the policy requiring players to stand for the National Anthem. Man, you guys think you had trouble getting people to come watch games BEFORE?.. This isn't going to help...
NASCAR has banned Confederate Flags at all of it's tracks. The announcement was fairly well received. But, not by driver Ray Ciccerelli. He announced he will quit racing at the end of this year over the flag policy ...
CELEBRIDIOTS: Farenheit 452? .. In the continuation of the 2020 version of "Burning Books", Netflix has taken down the comedy series "The Mighty Boosh" and "The League of Gentlemen" for being "racist". I have no idea if this is any big loss to the world of comedy because I have never seen them. But, explaining history is better than trying to selectively remove it and pretend it didn't happen. ... and...
Coachella 2020 is cancelled. So, there's that ... and..
Attention women readers that occasionally get on me for telling "older, formally sexy women" to stop trying to be 20 years old....That we don't want to SEE that. (The list is long.. but think.. Madonna.. Sharon Stone.. Pamela Anderson).. Well.. to even the scales a bit .. I give you Matthew Perry. HERE .. Yes, Friends. That is the former heart throb from "Friends" .. and Yes, those are manboobs.. and NO he is NOT pregnant. .. C'mon, Matty !!! How about a shave, a tailored suit, and a few hours in a gym !!!!
For the record, Heather Graham is NOT on the list of "we don't want to see that". Heather turned 50 this week.. HERE .. ..and for those that forget... even though I tell you on a pretty regular basis.. the secret to looking like that when you're 50 is to look like THIS ..HERE.... when you're 25. !!!!
From Seekingalpha.com
U.S. stock index futures, along with global stocks, are taking another turn for the worse as investors cash out of an extraordinary rally following the latest comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell. While he vowed to continue aggressive stimulus "and keep interest rates near zero for years," he struck a cautious note on jobs, undercutting the hopes for a V-shaped recovery. "My assumption is that there will be a significant chunk, well, well into the millions of people who don’t get to go back to their old jobs and there may not be a job in that industry for them for some time. It could be some years before we get back to those people finding jobs."
The Fed sees GDP plunging 6.5% in 2020 (before bouncing back to a 5% gain in 2021) and the unemployment rate to be 9.3% at year's end. A clearer picture may arise today as the Labor Department reports weekly jobless claims following last Friday's surprise of a 2.5M increase in nonfarm payrolls for May. Meanwhile, a resurgence in COVID-19 infection rates is also hitting states that have recently reopened, prompting concern about a potential second wave as the total number of U.S. cases topped 2M.
While the broader market sold off yesterday, a surge into tech stocks ensued in the face of economic uncertainty and social unrest. The market caps of both Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) crossed $1.5T for the first time ever, while Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) reached a market valuation of $1.3T and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) topped the $1T level for the first time since February. Driving the excitement has been an acceleration in the adoption of e-commerce, a shift to cloud computing and remote work, as well as the companies' rock-solid balance sheets and global user bases.
Grubhub (NYSE:GRUB) plans to merge with Just Eat Takeaway.com after talks with Uber (NYSE:UBER) fell through amid antitrust scrutiny. The deal would combine two of the top food delivery services in the U.S. and Europe and create the world's biggest food delivery company outside of China. Grubhub shareholders would receive 30% of the combined company via an all-stock transaction worth $7.3B. GRUB +7.6% premarket.
Elon Musk could've been popping champagne bottles yesterday as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares topped $1,000 for the first time ever, though instead he wrote to employees that it was "time to go all out" and put its Semi into volume production. It seems timely, given the hype surrounding newly listed Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA), an EV truck maker that has seen its shares take off to dizzying levels. A rally of about another 11% in Tesla shares could see it become the world's most valuable carmaker, taking the crown currently worn by Toyota (NYSE:TM). Go deeper: China Model 3s approved with LFP batteries.
A day after IBM (NYSE:IBM) said it would exit the facial recognition business, Amazon (AMZN) announced it would ban the use of its facial recognition software by police for one year. "We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested," the company said in a statement. Organizations focused on stopping human trafficking will still be permitted to use Rekognition, a product AWS launched in 2016.
Zoom's (NASDAQ:ZM) ties to China are under the microscope after it banned a group of prominent U.S.-based Chinese activists following a videoconference on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. "When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws," the company told various media outlets. While it has since reactivated the account, Zoom has previously acknowledged that much of its product development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were mistakenly routed through Chinese servers.
Suffering from product design delays and higher costs to supply equipment, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) is continuing a C-suite overhaul to catch up with rivals Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Huawei in the 5G race. Marco Wiren will join the company as CFO on Sept. 1, the same day Pekka Lundmark starts as chief executive. Sari Baldauf took over as chairwoman last month, succeeding Risto Siilasmaa who chaired the Finnish firm for eight years. NOK -1.8% premarket.
"After a comprehensive review over the last 18 months, the board continues to believe that moving from the current dual-headed legal structure to a single parent company will bring significant benefits," Unilever (UN, UL) said in a statement. The move, which would combine its U.K. and Dutch arms in a single British parent company, would result in one class of shares and a single pool of liquidity. A previous attempt to consolidate in the Netherlands drew fierce opposition from U.K. shareholders. UN +3.6% premarket.
The city's status as a destination for major Chinese technology companies got a lift overnight amid recent tensions over U.S. listing requirements. Shares of mobile games group NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) jumped nearly 10%, with the retail portion of the stock sale more than 130 times oversubscribed, while e-commerce company JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) fixed a price for its own $3.9B offering. The moves are likely to increase inflows and strengthen the local dollar at a time when China's national security law has raised concerns about Hong Kong's future as a financial hub.
What else is happening...
U.S. government deficit YTD exceeds full year FY2019.
Three key studies of COVID-19 vaccines to launch in summer.
Disneyland (NYSE:DIS) plans for phased reopening on July 17.
Today's Markets
In Asia, Japan -2.8%. Hong Kong -2.3%. China -0.8%. India -2.1%. In Europe, at midday, London -2%. Paris -2.1%. Frankfurt -2.3%. Futures at 6:20, Dow -2.5%. S&P -2.1%. Nasdaq -1.5%. Crude -3.2% to $38.33. Gold +1.1% to $1739.40. Ten-year Treasury Yield -4 bps to 0.71%
Today's Economic Calendar
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims 8:30 Producer Price Index 10:00 Quarterly Services Report 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory 1:00 PM Results of $19B, 30-Year Note Auction 4:30 PM Money Supply 4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Regards,
Roger “Raj” Searing rajsearing@gmail.com "Raj Searing™”, "Read this First™", "@rajsearing™", "TheRantRoom™" and “TheRantroom.com™” are Trademarks of RRRAJ, LLC. All Rights Reserved-2003.
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