1. NVDA Stock is About One Thing…Earnings Keeping Up
Look at the share price of Nvidia relative to earnings growth:
Found at Ben Carlson Blog https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/09/can-this-continue/
2. Sector Earnings
3. Sentiment Hit Bearish Levels in Last Week’s Sell Off -Investor Intelligence
Investor Intelligence
“Bulls are leaving the building: II bears are rising as bulls drop to lowest level of 2024. S&P 500 has struggled to make sustained upside progress over the past decade when the Bull – Bear Spread has been less than 20%.”
https://www.dailychartbook.com/s/dc-lite
4. CNN Fear and Greed Index
5. Follow Up to Monday’s Uranium Comments
ZeroHedge
Uranium stocks jumped in the early US cash session after Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to review possible measures to restrict exports of strategic raw materials, such as nickel, titanium, and uranium, in retaliation for Western sanctions.
In markets, uranium stocks, such as CCJ, UEC, URA, and URNM, jumped between 5% and 7%.
6. U.S. Education Degrees In Nuclear Dropping
WSJ
Between 2012 and 2022, the number of students graduating with bachelor’s degrees in nuclear engineering in the U.S. fell by 25%, according to the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, with the class of 2022 seeing only 454 students graduate with a degree in the field.
At the same time, the nuclear industry is facing a maturing workforce, with 17% of workers in the industry over the age of 55 and 60% aged between 30 and 54, according to the 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment report. The report also highlighted that 23% of workers were aged under 30, compared with 29% for other energy workers. By Yusuf Khan
7. Job Openings Still in Excess of Available Workers
From Advisor Perspectives Blog
Demographic Deficits by Carl Tannenbaum of Northern Trust Recent work from the McKinsey Global Institute clearly illustrates this progression. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis left many out of work, and the slow recovery from that episode kept ratios of job openings to job seekers very low. But starting in 2015, labor market capacity began declining. The pandemic years created a rude interruption, but the long-term trend has been re-established.
In several large countries, job openings are still well in excess of available workers. McKinsey finds that skills mismatches do not explain much of the gap; job vacancy rates are highest in occupations that are at the lower end of the wage scale, and should therefore be within the reach of most of those seeking work.
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2024/09/12/deficits-demographic
8. Nonresidential Construction Spending Hits Another Record
Construction Spending Squeaks to Record amid Eyepopping Boom in Spending on Factories while Residential Construction Tries to Dig Out of Last Year’s Slump
9. NFL 21M Per Game Viewership Record
BY JOE REEDY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NFL averaged 21.0 million viewers per game during the league’s opening week, making it the most-watched Week 1 on record.
The league and Nielsen said Wednesday morning that the per-game average on TV and digital platforms was a 12% increase over last year. Nielsen began electronic measurement of viewing in 1988.
All told, 123 million people saw at least part of one game, its highest total for an opening week since 2019.
“A great start with the viewership. It was great to be back and a lot to be excited about,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution.
NBC had the most-watched game, with defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City’s 27-20 victory over Baltimore in last Thursday’s opener averaging 29.2 million on TV and digital. It was NBC’s second-largest regular season game since 2006, when it acquired the “Sunday Night Football” package. The Sunday night game between Detroit and the Los Angeles Rams, which the Lions won 26-20 in overtime, averaged 22.7 million, a 3% jump from last year.
https://apnews.com/article/nfl-ratings-brady-01fce6b89c7d738c21badda85901e33c
10. Larry Silverstein Spent Years Tussling With the City to Rebuild the World Trade Center. Now He’s Ready to Talk About It
Inc.com
In his new book, the veteran real estate developer recounts the decades spent trying to reclaim the NYC skyline after tragedy.
BY SAM BLUM, SENIOR WRITER @SAMMBLUM
He’s one of the lucky ones: Larry Silverstein narrowly skirted disaster on September 11, 2001.
As the property developer has recounted numerous times over the last 23 years, the terrorist attacks that brought down the Twin Towers occurred just a few weeks after Silverstein Properties signed a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center in New York City.
That morning, he was supposed to be eating breakfast at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower. But before he left, his wife Klara reminded him he was due uptown for a dermatology appointment.
Unimaginable chaos and tragedy ensued. Terrorists hijacked two commercial airliners and flew one into each of the towers. The tallest buildings in New York eventually collapsed, laying in a gargantuan heap of smoldering rubble, and Silverstein made it his remaining life’s mission to rebuild them swiftly. Silverstein’s efforts to rise from the detritus of Ground Zero are recounted in his new book, The Rising: The Twenty-Year Battle to Rebuild the World Trade Center.
It’s a story rife with political infighting among a rotating cast of 21st-century New York powerbrokers. Across the mayoral administrations of Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill de Blasio, and governorships of George Pataki and Andrew Cuomo, the book casts Silverstein as the hero who sought to heal deep national wounds and bring the NYC skyline back to life. Others criticized
Silverstein for tussling with insurance companies and accused him of profiteering during an emotionally charged era in U.S. history.
Silverstein, now 93, sat down with Inc. to discuss the new book and where he thinks the commercial real estate market is headed from 2024 onward–an era that is far different from the one that saw rebuilding efforts begin.
(This conversation has been edited for length and clarity).
Why does the book describe rebuilding efforts as a “battle?”
There was no shortage of naysayers, people telling me this would never happen. After 9/11, they said nobody would ever want to go back down here. People would leave their residences. People would leave their commercial spaces. And that’s exactly what happened. Lower Manhattan was an unmitigated disaster.
I also came to the realization that the insurance companies were not going to pay me their obligations under the policies, for which I paid some significant premiums. And they said totally flat out building back here would never succeed. Therefore don’t bother, and forget about getting compensation from them.
They even offered me some kind of monetary advantage if I just picked up and left. And I said, “I’ve been a New Yorker all my life. You just expect me to just walk away from my obligation to New York? I can’t do that.” So I said, “Everybody has their price. My price is: Get on with the rebuilding and do it as quickly as possible.” So we ended up with five years of litigation. That was a terrible time.
Why was there no time to wait in the rebuilding process?
We needed to bring energy back to Lower Manhattan. I had acquired the site for the original 7 World Trade Center from the Port Authority in 1981; it was the last building to come down on 9/11. And under that building was a Con Edison substation that provided all electricity to Lower Manhattan.
Eugene McGrath, who was the CEO of Con Edison, called me and said, “We’ve got to get the substation rebuilt as quickly as possible, because we’re now supplying Lower Manhattan with emergency generators; they’re constantly subject to failure.”
In order to get power back to Lower Manhattan, we had no time for plans, no time for specifications, no time for contracts, no time for agreements, no time for anything. I mean, we had to start building, literally, on a handshake. [Editor’s note: Inc. and its parent company are tenants in the rebuilt 7 World Trade.]
Given everything that went into the rebuilding process, how do you feel looking up at the World Trade Center buildings today?
When the buildings had collapsed, there was nothing there. There was massive debris, terrible, terrible smog, terrible smoke, terrible fumes rising, and the odor of burning flesh. It was just horrible.
But in the most amazing turn of events, people started coming down to Ground Zero days after the attacks, to search for missing people. First from New York, but then from around the country, to try to help rescue people who they assumed could still be alive, but who they had no relationships with. They were just human beings, trying to help other human beings.
And so, thinking about that, and then looking out at what we’ve been able to create to replace the Twin Towers, gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I was enormously hopeful that we could build something vastly superior to what had been here, originally.
How has the WTC, lower Manhattan area changed since 2001?
Before 9/11, there was nothing here. After six o’clock at night, it was dead. You could roll a bowling ball down Wall Street and hit nothing. Nobody around: no cars, no vehicles, no trucks, no cabs. It was a dead community.
Now, It’s bustling with human beings. It’s the number of people down here visiting, walking through the Memorial Park. I can tell you, 27 percent of the people who work down here live down here. It’s the highest work-to-residence ratio in the entire United States.
What’s going on with 2 World Trade Center, which is the last building slated for construction?
Keep an eye on the press. That’s a no comment from us.
The pandemic cratered demand for commercial office space. Plus, we have a housing crisis in this country. How can we use unoccupied office space for people who need a place to live?
Part of working in the business today is the realization that some of the buildings are no longer functional as office space. The Rudin family built 55 Broad Street, maybe 70 years ago, and it became the headquarters building for Goldman Sachs. But Goldman left for a bigger office, and the family couldn’t find a corporate tenant.
So what we ended up doing is buying the building from the Rudins with the thought of converting it from office occupancy to residential. Frankly, if we are successful in converting 55 Broad Street–and I think we will be–I could see us doing the same with many other commercial buildings. It’s something that will affect New York in a very positive way. In the future, it’ll change neighborhoods very significantly, and create a better environment.
