Jefferies Zach Goldberg 335 and Counting…Bespoke noted, while the current streak is only about a third as long as the longest on record, if we get to July 17th without a one-day drop of 2%+, this will be the longest streak without a 2%+ drop since 2007.
3. Semiconductor Seasonality—NVDA 20% of Index
4. Streaming Wars-PARA Lost $1.6B on Streaming Last Year
What they heard surprised them. Young folks basically say they see no difference between going online for news versus for social interaction. Gen Zers approach most of their digital experience in what the researchers call “timepass” mode, just looking to not be bored. If they want to answer a question or learn something new, they might turn to a search engine, but they’re acquiring new information mainly via their social feeds, which arealgorithmically pruned to reflect what they care about and who they trust. In short, they’ve created their own filters to process an onslaught of digitized information. Only the important stuff shows up, and if something shows up, it must be important.
Gen Zers told researchers they spend most of their digital lives in “timepass” mode — engaging in light, obligation-free content. Jigsaw and Gemic
They don’t read long articles. And they don’t trust anything with ads, or paywalls, or pop-ups asking for donations or subscriptions. “If you’re making clickbait, you have zero faith in your content,” one subject told the researchers. “And news sources — even CNN and The New York Times — do clickbait. I throw those articles away immediately.”
For Gen Z, the online world resembles the stratified, cliquish lunchroom of a 1980s teen movie. Instead of listening to stuffy old teachers, like CNN and the Times, they take their cues from online influencers — the queen bees and quarterback bros at the top of the social hierarchy. The influencers’ personal experience makes them authentic, and they speak Gen Z’s language.
“Gen Zers will have a favorite influencer or set of influencers who they essentially outsource their trust to, and then they’re incredibly loyal to everything that influencer is saying,” says Beth Goldberg, Jigsaw’s head of research. “It becomes extremely costly to fall out of that influencer’s group, because they’re getting all their information from them.”
Rosenberg Research Nvidia, a $126 stock, saw trading volume of around 520 million shares on Thursday and more than 600 million on Friday. The norm so far this year has been over 400 million shares traded daily (split-adjusted), which is beyond the pale. Most of the rest of the Magnificent 7 have seen daily trading volume of between 20 million and 70 million shares, a fraction of Nvidia’s activity. Back in the early 1980s, just before I started in this business, a big day for the overall market was 20 million shares. This is not only surreal, but also it is difficult to understand in terms of the implications of this extraordinary situation when the world’s largest company sees its shares trade hands a half-billion times in one day. Why it’s concerning is that it highlights the extent to which dramatic liquidity inflows are underpinning these mega-cap stocks. https://www.rosenbergresearch.com
4. Market Leading Semiconductor Sub-Sector -7.2% Since From Highs
5. Bitcoin Technicals Update from Bespoke Investments
Bespoke Investment Group -Like many stocks, Bitcoin has also found itself treading water for the last several months trying to hang on to the gains from the late 2023/early 2024 rally. This morning, prices are down another 4% near the $60,000 level. After peaking above $70,000 in March, prices have been drifting lower in a sideways range, and if the April lows in the $57,000 range don’t hold, it could be a long summer.
From a longer-term perspective, $65,000 seems to be a level that Bitcoin just can’t shake. In early 2021, it briefly flirted with that level and then quickly erased more than half of its value. Later that year, it got there again and managed to stay there for a few days before crashing over 75%. It took two years and a few months to get back there again, and this time Bitcoin managed to hang around $65,000 again and even take out $70,000, but that level has failed to hold again.
6. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy weight-loss drug approved in China
Reuters-By Andrew Silver The number of overweight adults in China, the world’s second most populous country, is projected to reach 540 million by 2030, 2.8 times higher than 2000 levels, a Chinese public health study showed in 2020. Numbers who are obese are seen jumping 7.5 times to 150 million. But Novo may have a much shorter time in the Chinese market to make the most of its early-mover advantage in weight-loss drugs. Its patent on semaglutide, the key ingredient in Wegovy and its diabetes drug Ozempic, is set to expire in less than two years in China compared to in 2031 in Europe and Japan and in 2032 in the U.S, and local drugmakers are racing to develop generic or biosimilar versions. Novo is also in the midst of a legal fight in China over the patent, an adverse ruling in which could make it lose its semaglutide exclusivity even sooner. That would make China the first major market where it is stripped of patent protection for the drugs. At least two Chinese firms, Livzon Pharmaceutical Group (000513.SZ), opens new tab and Hangzhou Jiuyuan Gene Engineering, have already applied to begin commercial sales of Ozempic copies. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/novo-nordisk-says-semaglutide-approved-long-term-weight-management-china-2024-06-25/
10. High Stress Resiliency Linked To Specific Types Of Gut Microbes And Metabolites: Study
ZEROHEDGE BY TYLER DURDEN Authored by Amy Denney via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A new study came out on Friday in Nature Mental Health reveals new evidence that the gut and brain work together to build resilience to stress, contributing to a growing body of research that suggests the gut is a possible pathway to help prevent or minimize stress-related psychiatric conditions. Specifically, a high-resilience phenotype of the gut microbiome was identified based on a mix of microbes and metabolites that had anti-inflammatory and gut-barrier integrity features. This phenotype was associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression. Besides looking at the traits of the microbiome, the study used clinical and psychological assessment tools and MRIs that examined structural and functional roles of the brain. The study included 116 healthy participants, 18 to 60 years old. The main finding suggests that “the microbiome is critical in shaping resilience” and modifying the gut microbiome “can optimize mental health.”
Resiliency Equates to Health
The differences in microbes and metabolites between high-resilience and low-resilience individuals were distinct in the study. High resiliency was associated with biomarkers indicating better gut barrier integrity, lower depression and anxiety psychopathology, higher cognitive function, less gray matter volume in the brain, and increased functional circuitry in the brain. Compromised or weakened gut barrier, sometimes called “leaky gut,” is being considered as a potential factor in a number of chronic diseases. Dysbiosis, or an imbalance of gut microbes, is associated with chronic diseases and inflammation. Analysis of the gut microbiome in the high-resilience individuals noted increased levels of microbes and metabolites that are:
Better at environmental adaptation
Able to replicate and repair DNA
Better at carbohydrate and energy metabolism
Anti-inflammatory
Ms. Church said in terms of psychosocial traits, the high-resilient individuals were also more non-judgmental, easy-going, kind, extroverted, and mindful. They had lower levels of perceived stress and also low levels of neuroticism. She described the relationship between the gut and brain like a car with working brakes. “If you have great working brakes, you’re able to modulate or control the situation, have emotional regulation and cognitive response,” she said. “And they had gut bacteria and metabolites associated with reduced inflammation and better gut barrier integrity.”
7. Home Prices to Median Income Increases by 50% vs. 1990
Chartr -As wage growth struggles to keep pace with home price inflation, buying a house has felt increasingly out of reach for millions of Americans recently — a trend that’s been ongoing for the last 3+ decades. Indeed, in 2023, a typical home in America will cost buyers 4.9x the median income. That’s a 50%+ increase on the 3.1x price-to-income ratio averaged in 1990 and only slightly below the record figure set in 2022, according to new analysis from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Furthermore, this is a phenomenon that’s happening almost everywhere: a whopping 378 out of the 384 American Metropolitan areas (98.4%) that Chartr analyzed from the Harvard report saw rises between 1990 and 2023. Just 2 areas reported a home-price-to-median-income ratio that was the same as in 1990 and only 4 reported a drop.
Inflation continues to be the factor in how Americans perceive the economy — and the cost of houses is a major factor in that sentiment. Across the US, home prices have surged by 47% since the start of 2020 and have more than doubled since 2010, based on data from the NAR cited in the report. While new-home construction has fallen to a 4-year low, there’s also fewer existing homes entering the market. Rising interest rates have created a “golden handcuff” effect, discouraging homeowners from selling and taking on new, more expensive mortgages. Additionally, more homes are owned by older generations who are less likely to move. This has all culminated in a stark reality: you now need an annual income of $100,000 to afford a median-priced home in nearly half of all metro areas. As for renters? The majority of them are already declaring the American Dream of homeownership dead.
Insights-“Perfection is impossible. In the 1526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now, I have a question for you. What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. You teach yourself to think, okay, I double-faulted … it’s only a point. Okay, I came to the net, then I got passed again; it’s only a point. Even a great shot, an overhead backhand smash that ends up on ESPN’s top 10 playlist. That, too, is just a point. And here’s why I’m telling you this. When you’re playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world, and it is. But when it’s behind you, It’s behind you. This mindset is really crucial because it frees you to fully commit to the next point and the next point after that, with intensity, clarity, and focus. You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. That is, to me, the sign of a champion. The best in the world are not the best because they win every point. It’s because they lose again and again and have learned how to deal with it. You accept it. Cry it out if you need to and force a smile.” — Roger Federer https://fs.blog/
4. Bespoke Investment Group-Nearing 10x Sales for Large-Cap Tech
In today’s Chart of the Day we took a look at valuations across the Tech sector and how things stand relative to historical extremes. (It’s an eye-opening read, so make sure to check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.)
Below is a quick look at trailing 12-month price to sales ratios (P/S) over the last five years for the large-cap S&P 500 and small-cap Russell 2,000 along with each index’s respective Technology sector. As shown, the Russell 2,000’s price to sales ratio is just 1.25x, which is slightly below its average P/S ratio over the last five years. The Russell 2,000 Technology sector’s price to sales ratio is higher at 2.8x, but that’s still below the 2.9x P/S ratio for the S&P 500 as a whole. Incredibly, the S&P 500 Tech sector’s price to sales ratio has pushed all the way up to 9.8x, which is well above its high at the peak in late 2021. A 9.8x multiple is attractive if you’re looking at price to earnings (P/E), but for Tech stocks to be trading at 9.8x annual sales, that’s just a remarkably high number. (As mentioned, we’ve got further coverage of this topic in today’s Chart of the Day if you’d like to read more of our thoughts.)
Below is a look at the stocks in the large-cap Russell 1,000 that have seen the biggest increase in their price to sales (P/S) ratios since the current bull market began on 10/12/22. As shown, NVIDIA (NVDA) has seen its share price rise more than 1,000% during this bull market, but its P/S ratio has made 32 turns higher from 9.7x up to 41.9x! That’s by far the biggest jump of any stock in the index. Of the 30 stocks shown, the average P/S ratio has risen 9.6 points from 8.6x up to 18.2x, and most stocks on the list are Tech stocks.
5. The Bear Market in Diversified Portfolio Investing
Bloomberg Lu WangThe numbers are stark. Money managers who obeyed the financial industry’s age-old wisdom to divide investments across markets and geographies are on an epic losing streak versus those who simply bought the S&P 500 and sat still. In one example, out of roughly 370 asset-allocation funds tracked by Morningstar Inc., just one has managed to beat the index since 2009.
7. Solar High Use Hours…. Solar punches in and punches out-Moses Sternstein
One of the many challenges of relying on “renewable” energy sources is that they are unreliable. Solar energy does not work at night, and wind energy does not work if there is no wind.
Solar energy powers 70% of CA’s consumption at its peak . . . and 0% at its nadirs.
On the one hand, this is a very impressive accomplishment. That’s a lot of solar energy doing work. CA is basically incapable of building anything, so the fact that they got this much solar online is no small feat.
On the other hand, you can see why skeptics think that LNG in the near-term (and maybe nuclear in the longer-term) will have to be part of the picture. Solar energy is entirely useless between the hours of 8pm and 6am. For 14 hours per day though, solar is a beast.
Again, that doesn’t mean that battery storage won’t improve, or that we won’t develop clever ways of optimizing for solar when it’s available. There are many companies focused on various iterations of both of these solutions.
But it sure seems like solar has a long way to go before it becomes the thing.
Jun 19, 2024, 8:11 AM EDTSugary beverages can add about 500 calories a day to your diet, increasing your risk of heart-health issues. Start by cutting back on sodas, sweetened coffees, and alcohol. Oleh_Slobodeniuk/Getty Images
A cardiologist said the biggest heart-health mistake is waiting too long to make healthy changes.
Diet and exercise play a big role in preventing heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes later on.
A simple way to make your diet more heart-healthy is to switch up your drinks first.
If you want to live a long life, the best time to pay attention to your heart health is right now, according to a doctor.
The biggest mistake people make about heart health is waiting until it’s too late to take action, Dr. Gregory Katz, a cardiologist at NYU Langone, said.
“People think it’s something that happens suddenly. Sometimes they look up and are like, ‘How the hell did I have a heart attack or stroke?’ The seeds are planted very early on,” Katz told Business Insider.
Your habits today, such as eating well and exercising, can make a big difference in protecting your heart and preventing heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes later in life, he said.
While medication can help, patients sometimes put off taking drugs that could help them manage their risk in favor of trying to change their habits first.
“Taking medication is not a moral failing. That’s an important message,” Katz said.
The trick is focusing on changes you can actually stick to, he added.
“People are not honest with themselves about what lifestyle changes they’re actually going to make,” Katz said. “A large percentage of patients tell themselves they’ll make changes, and suddenly five years later, their cholesterol is still high.”
To make heart-healthy habits stick, focus on making small, sustainable changes — one of the simplest is reducing your sugar intake from drinks, Katz said.
In contrast, diets for better heart health involve eating lots of veggies, whole grains, legumes, and unsaturated fats such as olive oil, which help lower your cholesterol.
But it can be tough to transform your diet overnight, and making too many changes at once can backfire
One of the simplest ways to make your diet more heart-healthy is to cut back on sweetened drinks or boozy beverages, Katz said.
“Drinking calories and drinking alcohol are the biggest modifiable risk factors. The number of people I see drinking 500 calories a day blows my mind,” he said. “Just because it’s simple doesn’t make it easy.”
Evidence suggests that sodas, juices, sugary coffees, and cocktails can all contribute to health risks such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
A dietitian previously told BI a good strategy to cut back on sweet drinks is to replace them with alternatives such as:
seltzer with a splash of fruit juice
unsweetened tea
water flavored with citrus or herbs such as mint
Swapping out liquid calories is a good first step to improving key factors for better heart health (and a longer life), such as healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels and stable blood sugar.
