Is the headline curse about to diminish Apple?

Notes Today:

• Floridians will be able to carry concealed guns without a permit under a bill DeSantis signed Monday. This will allow anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida to carry one without a permit or training, nor will a background check be required.
• An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older -- about 1 in 4 adults -- suffers from a diagnosable mentaldisorder in a given year. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. In particular, depressive illnesses tend to co-occur with substance use and anxiety disorders.

It is dangerous, “Spock says, “to be ill-informed about facts.”

 

Later

 

S&P 500 Stocks making new 52 week highs (6)

Activision Blizzard Ord Shs	84.39	ATVI.O
Copart Ord Shs	71.43	CPRT.O
Darden Restaurants Ord Shs	152.58	DRI
Hershey Foods Ord Shs	247.86	HSY
Mondelez International Ord Shs Class A	69.04	MDLZ.O
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Ord Shs	820	REGN.O

 

Quick Overview is up to date

 

Notes Today: 

• In America, a gun is stolen from a car every 15 minutes. Thanks to lax gun laws like permitless carry, firearm thefts from cars are up 225% in the past decade, and are now the largest source of stolen guns, which then become ....  

• American consumers are one step closer to being able to buy chicken grown in bioreactors.

• After the government intervened at SVB, some are wondering if accounts at all banks are implicitly guaranteed. If so, what function does private banking serve? 

• Permit less carry bill passes Florida House, firearm training requirement removed.

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Why is money moving out of bank deposits? – explanatory chart..

 

Notes Today:

• Moody’s sees risk that US banking turmoil can’t be contained. Well, that does not sound very good. 

• WSJ: Elon Musk’s Twitter is now a gigantic $13 billion in debt due to advertisers fleeing to “protect their brands” from Twitter’s toxicity. 

• Yet another crypto dude, Do Kwon, is charged with fraud by US Prosecutors in New York. Could Munger be right and crypto is just an open sewer, full of malicious organisms?

Notes Today: 

• US FED raises interest rates for ninth time in a row despite recent banking turmoil. Recognizing "serious problems" in a small number of banks.

• Trump thinks perp walk in front of cameras might be "FUN." 

• A new paper argues there’s another way to hold big oil accountable for climate damage: trying companies for homicide. 

• Ford is about to break out big EV losses for the first time. Ford will begin reporting its financial results by business unit, instead of by region. The changes amount to the most detailed look yet by any legacy automaker into finances behind EV business. 

Very Interesting Chart:  

Periods When to Make Money

Via https://twitter.com/AlessioUrban  retweeted

Menthor Q@MenthorQpro

This chart is crazy, made in 1875 by Samuel Benner showing periods of panic, good time to sell assets and good times to buy. Mind blowing that he predicted so many events. Really telling. Don’t have the source someone sent it to me.

 

S&P 500 stocks making 52 week highs (3)

ANET.K	Arista Networks Ord Shs		163.26
MKTX.O	MarketAxess Holdings Ord Shs		389.77
NVR	NVR Ord Shs		5503

Notes Today:

• UBS's $3.3 billion buyout of CS met with a big yawn in the S&P futures market so far.

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) has stepped up its pace of stock buybacks, repurchasing more than $1.8 billion of its own stock this year.

Gold over the previous hump, only just..

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Latest Dow Theory prediction

3/19/2022 Samll change in Dow Theory Prediction:

   Returning to bullish view if

   DJIA closes above 34581 "and"

   DJTA closes above 15587

 Quick Overview is up to date

A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Untold Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election

“History needs to know that this happened,” Mr. Barnes, who turns 85 next month, said in one of several interviews, his first with a news organization about the episode. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and m
ore. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.”

Better late than never!

Notes Today:

• Trump claims he ‘will be arrested’ on Tuesday in New York criminal case..

• After a pretty epic and  awful 12 months, crypto evangelists are enjoying a moment – what could go wrong?
• First Republic Bank (FRC) was cut to junk by S&P Global  and Fitch
• 

• Reminder: Under Trump, banks  with less than $250bn in assets (SVB -FRC) werefreed from the tightest regulatory scrutiny.

International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin for War Crimes

The States Parties to the Rome Statute

 

Notes Today:

 

• Pornhub acquired … Ethical Venture bought them. No joke!

• Credit Suisse is exercising an option to borrow $53.75 billion (CHF 50 billion) from the Swiss National Bank - to stay afloat. 

• Goldman raised US recession probability to 35% on banking stress – I would put it a bit higher 50%? 

• March 16 (Reuters) - Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX made transfers of about $2.2 billion to company founder Sam Bankman-Fried through related entities, the company's new management said. (Btw, why is this dude  out on no money down bail? - remarkable)

• The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, snapped its 19-session winning streak on Thursday, weighed by weakness in the capesize and panamax segments. 

  The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax and supramax shipping vessels, lost 43 points, or about 2.7%, to 1,560 – its biggest dip since Feb. 15. 

  The capesize index lost 128 points, or about 6.1%, to 1,976. 

  Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, decreased $1,066 to $16,387. 

  Dalian and Singapore iron ore futures slumped on Thursday, along with steel benchmarks in China as sentiment soured, mirroring a broader risk aversion triggered by fears of a banking crisis.  (Helllenic Shipping)

 

 Vacant US office space

 

Notes today:

• Deploying regulators: Treasury department reviewing us bank exposure to credit swiss..
• Credit Swisse: Today’s 24% share price decline eclipses even the worst days of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. (weekly chart)
• Probability of default is 47% - so says the market (CDS).

"There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen" Warren Buffett 

With more cockroaches making an appearance, could gold perhaps  take out the previous hump?

Regulators have been warning for some time of the myriad crypto risks seeping into the mainstream banking system, comparing them directly to the $1.3 trillion subprime mortgage market that incentivized greed, exploited regulatory arbitrage and eventually led to the 2008 economic meltdown. 

 

Notes today:

Lawrence H. Summers on CNN: SVB committed one of the most elementary errors in banking: borrowing money in the short term and investing in the long term. When interest rates went up, the assets lost their value and put the institution in a problematic situation. 

Quite true Larry, however borrowing short and lending long is what banks always do and have always done - it’s the only thing banks seem to know how to do. (see banking and commercial real estate)

Perhaps the Fed (and the regulation opposing dudes) could make sure that all banks have a risk manager in "place" (and not  across the country away from the rest of SVB’s top fools) that understands duration and conceivably even understands how to hedge a bond portfolio. Perhaps someone could point these risk managers to the futures exchanges.

This stuff is learnable. 

• In a case that starkly illustrates the deadly consequences that the US’s permissive gun culture has on the country’s youth, a three-year-old girl accidentally shot her four-year-old sister to death in their Texas home late on Sunday, according to authorities.

• Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.👎

 

Notes today:

• Recession may arrive sooner than anticipated..

• First Republic (FRC) down more than 60% in premarket trading as measures taken by regulators so far fail to calm investors.

• Silicon Valley Bank's depositors are helped, equity and bondholders are being wiped out. 

• Signature Bank (crypto scheme focused) closed by regulators ..

• Former board member 

•   

• Ayn Rand  - not so popular in silicon valley today.. But no worries, welfare for adherents,
  hypocrites and frauds -  continues...

• The decision of the Swiss authorities to destroy decommissioned but fully operational and not obsolete air defence systems instead of deliver/sell them to Ukraine is like a decision to destroy bread amid famine. It is way more than just coldness or lack of empathy. It is cruelty. Sergej Sumlenny @sumlenny

• The Russia situation:
• Artist:
  @Patbagley
  
  
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Billions Worth of Crypto Trades at Risk as Bank Shutdowns Take Toll...

Crypto: I just avoid it as if it were an open sewer, full of malicious organisms,” Munger said in an interview with the Australian Financial Review.

• Nassin Nicholas Taleb on Crypto / Bitcoin     (Internalize)

• "'It turned out that one of the biggest risks to our business model was catering to a very tightly knit group of investors who exhibit herd-like mentalities,' said a [SVB] executive.... 'I mean, doesn’t that sound like a bank run waiting to happen?'" https://ft.com/content/b556badb-8e98-42fa-b88e-6e7e0ca758b8

 

Quick Overview is up to date

• Silicon Valley Bank chief pressed Congress to weaken risk regulations 😫Touting “SVB’s deep understanding of the markets it serves, our strong risk management practices”.....

• German banks also suffering due to SVBC collapse. German Bank index at 1980 levels..

 

SVB_Financial: As expected, libertarians a screaming loudest - they need to be bailed out, FIRST!

"Where is Janet with "my" check?"

Notes today: 

• First Flight of Regional Jet Powered by Hydrogen Fuel Cells–40-Seater is Largest Ever to Fly.

• One brokerage estimates that there will be about 330 million square feet of excess office space by the end of the decade.

• WHO: there have been about 677 million covid cases and 6.9 million death.

• Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai thinks that generative AI (ChatGPT / Microsoft) will be “more powerful than fire or electricity”. 😕

 

Notes today:

• Banks F*****Up regularly  – you can count on it! Same old movie different actors..

• Regulators took over California-based Silicon Valley Bank on Friday in the second-biggest bank failure in US history. 
• "There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen" Warren Buffett
• Stablecoin (“stablecoins“  hilariously named) giant Circle Internet Financial Ltd said $3.3 billion of its about $40 billion of USD Coin reserves remain at Silicon Valley Bank...
• USDC's normally stable price sank to $0.89 from $1 while Ethereum gas fees soared hours after the crypto-tied bank failed.
• The ramifications of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis have spread to Sweden. SVB's plunge wiped out more than half of the value of the holdings that Alecta — Sweden's largest pension fund — had in the bank.

• Russia: The life expectancy for young men is now as low as for men in Haiti—and lower than in Bangladesh. (Economist) 

• China hiked its defense budget by 7.2 per cent, marginally higher than last year, to 1.55 trillion yuan (about USD 225 billion), marking the eighth consecutive year of increase in its military spending. China is the second biggest spender on defense next to the US whose defense budget for 2023 totaled USD 816 billion.

 Why central banks are stockpiling gold

 

Economics, simply put

 

There is a limit to the amount of information that a person can absorb. This means that choices which they believe to be informed and rational can look irrational to someone with greater knowledge. As any behavioural economist worth their salt could tell you, this theory of decision-making is known as “bounded rationality”.

 

But you’d be forgiven for not knowing that. Economics is littered with complicated-sounding ideas that, once grasped, help to make sense of the world. So we have published a glossary of economic terms, explained in plain English. Our A to Z of economics includes almost 500 cross-referenced entries. Some link to longer explainer articles exploring the topic in more detail. And we’ll keep adding to the list. So the next time you’re puzzled by the Nash equilibrium or struggling to explain quantitative tightening you’ll know where to look. We hope it offers you an absolute advantage (which is also, conveniently, the first entry on the list).

 

Quick Overview is up to date 

 Latest US Inflation and Fed Funds comp.

Notes today: 

• “Despite our citizens’ penchant – almost enthusiasm – for self-criticism and self-doubt, I have yet to see a time when it made sense to make a long-term bet against America,” - calling near-term economic and market forecasts “worse than useless.” 
• Do yourself a great big favor and read it! Warren Buffett 2/25/2023  
• We are understanding about business mistakes; our tolerance for personal misconduct is zero.

• China's single population to reach 400 million, youths staring at being single for life...

• Rise in Auto Delinquencies
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• 
   Car  Loan Payments Soar to $1,000

 

Dow Trend Earnings (aka Fed Model) is up to date.

• Perhaps, you may want to note that the equity risk premium (FEAR) is at its lowest since the run-up to 2008.

 

Quick Overview is up to date

 

Quick Overview is up to date