TOPLEY’S TOP 10 May 10 2024 

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1. Sell Side Consensus Indicator Neutral

There is not “extreme bullishness” from Wall Street.

2. U.S. Strong Profit Margins vs. International

The Daily Shot Brief Equities: The ability of US firms to maintain strong margins continues to exceed expectations.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research

3. Summertime Historical Returns

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright

https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/nasdaq-dorsey-wright

4. Post Covid Vaccine Healthcare Stocks

From Abnormal Returns Blog  www.abnormalreturns.com

5. Bitcoin ETF Price vs. Flows

Marketwatch By Frances Yue  
Last week, bitcoin’s BTCUSD, 0.46% price rose despite a net outflow of $468 million from bitcoin ETFs, according to data from crypto market maker Wintermute. And in the first three days of this week, bitcoin fell roughly 3%, even though the ETFs saw an aggregate inflow of about $192 million. Bitcoin was trading at around $62,390 as of Thursday afternoon — up 48.5% year to date, but down more than 15% from its all-time high of $73,798 reached in March, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
“The varied demand for bitcoin suggests that the market is maturing and may not necessarily remain strongly correlated with ETF flows in the future,” analysts at Wintermute’s OTC desk wrote in a recent note.  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-etfs-helped-drive-the-cryptos-price-higher-that-may-no-longer-be-the-case-581f4bb2?mod=home-page

IBIT below highs

6. Airbnb -13% Correction

ABNB approaching 200-day

7. New Home Construction Hasn’t Kept Pace

Capital Group, Martin Jacobs

https://www.capitalgroup.com/advisor/insights/articles/us-housing-underappreciated-growth-market.html?sfid=892031133&cid=81173592&et_cid=81173592&cgsrc=SFMC&alias=btn-LP-A1cta-advisor

8. Rent Inflation Should Continue to Fall

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright New rents inflation peaked two years ago, but CPI rent inflation is a year behind
The story is similar in housing. New rent inflation (looking just at new lease prices each quarter) peaked in Q2 2022 at 12% YoY, but has since fallen to 0.4% p.a. (chart below, blue line).
But the CPI measure of rents (chart below, purple line) has been much slower to fall. That’s partly because it’s a sample of all rents – not just newly signed or renewed leases.
The short story here though, is that rents also seem more likely to fall in the future too.

9. US cities drawing more millionaires with lower taxes, cheaper homes, and shorter commutes

Scottsdale, Arizona. 

  • Consulting firm Henley & Partners identified 3 US cities with huge potential for wealth growth.
  • They have faster growth in millionaire residents, said Henley, which advises the wealthy on moving. 
  • Scottsdale, Palm Beach, and Greenwich draw high-net-worth people leaving New York and California. 

New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago may no longer hold the same sway for millionaires and billionaires anymore, according to consulting firm Henley & Partners.
Instead a “millionaire remix” is underway, according to the firm, in which increasing numbers of wealthy people are choosing destinations farther away from the economic centers that once dominated.

“Cities such as Austin, Miami, and Scottsdale are gaining residents, while traditional hubs such as Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago experience modest declines,” wrote Henley & Partners managing partner Mehdi Kadiri.

Henley & Partners, a London-based firm that advises wealthy people on moving and citizenship, tracks the movements of high-net-worth individuals using data from wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth.

Alongside its new ranking of the world’s wealthiest cities — ones with the most millionaire and billionaire residents — Henley & Partners also highlighted smaller spots poised for significant wealth growth in 2024 and beyond.

Take Scottsdale, Arizona, a city just outside Phoenix, prized for its resort-like homes and amenities, including golf courses, which come at a fraction of the cost of nearby California.

Two other cities with fast-growing wealthy populations — Palm Beach, Florida, and the posh Connecticut suburbs of Greenwich and Darien — attract finance types. Lower taxes and quality-of-life improvements may also motivate high-net-worth individuals to move.

The numbers of wealthy residents in these cities might be smaller than in the major hubs, but their rate of growth is much higher. New York, for example, has 349,500 millionaires, according to Henley & Partners, while Scottsdale only has 14,500. However, the number of millionaires in Scottsdale grew 102% from 2013 to 2023, while New York’s millionaire population went up 48% over the same period.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cities-fastest-growing-millionaire-population-taxes-cost-of-living-2024-5

10. An art market full of cracks is about to face a $1 billion test

Robert Frank@ROBTFRANK

The key May art sales at major auction houses are expected to be down from last year, as wealthy buyers and sellers take a breather from the frenzied prices of 2021 and 2022.

Art auction sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips over the next two weeks are expected to total $1.2 billion, down 18% from a year ago and nearly half the total for the May 2022 sales, according to ArtTactic.

It extends a recent decline for the art market from its post-Covid peak, when cheap money, a booming stock market and fiscal stimulus saw record sales. Last year, global auctions of fine art fell 27% from 2022 — the art market’s first contraction since the start of the pandemic in 2020 — and the average price dropped 32%, marking the biggest decline in seven years, according to ArtTactic.

During the first quarter of this year, sales in the contemporary and postwar category — the big money maker and growth driver for the art market in recent years — plunged 48%, according to ArtTactic.

Total auction sales and lots sold 2019–2023

The auction houses say demand from buyers remains strong. The problem, they say, is supply, as collectors hold back on selling their trophies for a better market environment. This spring, there are also no big single-owner collections up for sale, like the Macklowe Collection or Paul Allen Collections that helped power sales in previous years.

“We’re seeing what people perceive as a smaller offering this season,” said Brooke Lampley, global chairman and head of global fine art at Sotheby’s. “The proof is in the pudding. It’s the buyers showing up and what the work will sell for that will define our perception of the art market right now. And I expect the results to be strong.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/10/art-sales-down-collectors-pull-back.html

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 May 09 2024

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1. For All The Young People …Ben Carlson on Buying that $70,000 Truck

A Wealth of Common Sense Blog

Now let’s do the personal finance thing and look at how much these savings could be worth over the long haul.

Let’s say you say just 75% of the monthly savings so you can blow the rest of the money on anything else you’d like.

Here’s what it looks like if you bank those savings in the stock market every year for 30 years and earn 7% on your investments:

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/02/how-much-is-that-70000-truck-costing-you/

2. The Size of Aggregate Earnings Beat Q1 2024 was Best in 3 Years

From UNIO Capital

https://uniocapital.com/

3. Stock Buybacks About to Break-Out to New Highs

4. Private Equity Sitting on $3.2 Trillion of “Unexited” Companies.

Bloomberg
But the revival hasn’t come fast enough: Behind the scenes, the private equity shops saddled with bulging portfolios — and the banks and exchanges that make millions helping companies go public — are still scrambling to come up with alternative exit strategies.

Some are turning to private sales of shares, while others are establishing new semi-public exchanges to tempt companies to market. Inside at least one buyout firm, executives want to rejig long-accepted investment frameworks to address the new reality.

The reasons: A return to true health in the IPO pipeline could take until next year, and a record $3.2 trillion was tied up in aging, closely held companies at the end of 2023, Preqin data found. That’s a problem for private equity, which relies on the cycle of raising money to make acquisitions, exiting via a sale or IPO and then returning money to investors — before ultimately asking for more funds to do it all again.

By Bailey Lipschultz, Swetha Gopinath, and Vinicy Chan 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-09/buyout-firms-seek-alternatives-to-going-public-in-weak-ipo-market?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=GGda9y2L

5. UBER -22% from Highs

6. FXI Large Cap China ETF +15% 2024 But Trend Still Down Versus vs. FRDM

Large Cap China vs. FRDM (emerging minus china and other freedom lacking markets)

7. 10-Year Treasury Yield Down From Fed Meeting….4.70 to 4.50

8. Tech Jobs Leaving California for Texas

Torsten Slok Apollo
The share of tech jobs in California has been declining and the share of tech jobs in Texas has been rising, see chart below.

9. Coindesk….Nearly All FTX Creditors Will Get 118% of Their Funds Back in Cash, Estate Says in New Plan

The new reorganization plan must first be approved by a Delaware bankruptcy court.  By Cheyenne Ligon

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has proposed a new reorganization plan that would see a whopping 98% of its creditors get back 118% of their claims – in cash – within 60 days of court approval, according to new documents filed Tuesday evening.

Under the plan, other non-governmental creditors would get back 100% of their claims plus up to 9% interest to compensate them “for the time value of their investments.” The arrangement is still subject to approval by the Delaware bankruptcy court overseeing the bankruptcy case.

The proposed payouts are higher than earlier estimates from the FTX estate, which said in October it expected to pay back only 90% of customer funds. In January, current FTX CEO John Jay Ray III revised that estimate, telling the court he expected to be able to pay customers back in full.

Though the crypto market has rebounded since FTX’s collapse and subsequent bankruptcy – irking many of FTX’s customers, who have missed out on the opportunity to profit from the run-up in crypto prices while their funds are stuck in bankruptcy limbo – the estate denies that the market recovery is the driving force behind its massive pile of cash.

In a Tuesday press release, the FTX estate said it expects to have between $14.5 and $16.3 billion in cash available for distribution by the time a plan is approved by a Delaware bankruptcy court – the result of a year-and-a-half of scraping together the company’s scattered assets around the world and liquidating them.

“As previously disclosed, FTX.com had a massive shortfall at the time of the Chapter 11 filing in November 2022 – holding only 0.1% of the Bitcon and only 1.2% of the Ethereum customers believed it held,” the press release stated. “Accordingly, Debtors have not been able to benefit from the appreciation of these missing tokens during these Chapter 11 cases.”

Other sources of value, including investments made by FTX and Alameda Research – such as its 8% stake in AI startup Anthropic, which was sold piecemeal to institutional investors for $884 million in March – have been liquidated to generate cash to pay back the claims.

FTX’s new reorganization plan would also settle a host of claims from regulators and government agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The IRS agreed to resolve its $24 billion in claims in return for a $200 million cash payment and a $685 million subordinated claim that will only be paid out after all creditors and other governmental entities.

The CFTC and other unnamed governmental claimants agreed to subordinate their claims as long as FTX users and investors were paid in full with interest. There are also plans for a special fund created to make “supplemental restitution” to certain customers and creditors, though the details of this agreement have not been finalized, according to the press release.

A hearing to discuss the proposed plan is scheduled for June. The specter of Sam Bankman-Fried

Former FTX CEO and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried previously attempted to use the estate’s ability to pay back customers in full as evidence that the collapse of his exchange had “zero” harm to its customers.

Before his sentencing in March, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued that their client should receive a light sentence, in part because customers would get all their money back.

Ray, along with dozens of FTX creditors, wrote to the court arguing that the estate’s ability to claw together enough to money pay back his victims – the result of “tens of thousands of hours … spent digging through the rubble of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sprawling criminal enterprise to unearth every possible dollar, token or other asset” – doesn’t mean his conduct wasn’t criminal.


Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He plans to appeal his sentence and conviction.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/08/nearly-all-ftx-creditors-will-get-118-of-their-funds-back-in-cash-estate-says-in-new-plan/

10. Jerry Seinfeld Just Said Lifelong Success, Happiness, and Fulfillment Comes Down to Just 2 Words

Money, fame, and ‘things’ are great, but to Seinfeld, the pursuit of this matters most.
EXPERT OPINION BY JEFF HADEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC. @JEFF_HADEN
 
Jerry Seinfeld. 
The other day, I walked into a room and said to my wife, “You know, we did a really good job on these floors.” Well-fitted, wide-plank oak boards. Artful racking. Smooth, even finish. Laying the floor took considerable time and effort and wasn’t particularly fun, but in that moment all I thought about was how good it looked.
And how good that made me feel.
I don’t always like doing, but I really like having done, especially if I’ve done well.
Which, according to Jerry Seinfeld, is the key to happiness and fulfillment:
… the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine. They’re good. I like them. But having a skill….
It’s a very Zen Buddhist concept: Pursue mastery. That will fulfill your life. You will feel good.
I know a lot of rich people. They don’t feel good, as you think they should and would. They’re miserable. Because, if they don’t master a skill, life is unfulfilling.
Granted, those two words — pursue mastery — do sound a little Zen.
But not if you unpack it. Imagine you want to achieve, to accomplish, to be something.
Say your goal is to build a thriving business. Most people focus on measuring results and outcomes. Want to know your revenue for the month? Easy: Add up your sales. Want to know your safety record for the month? Easy: Add up your recordable accidents.
Results, though, are lag metrics. They show what happened — or, in the case of a goal, what you wanted to happen. Lag metrics are easy to set and simple to track. But they’re useless in terms of predicting, much less influencing, the future.
That’s where lead metrics come in. Lead metrics are predictive of achieving a long-term goal:

  • Want to increase revenue? Increase ad spending. Make more sales calls.
  • Want to improve safety? Require hard hats on the factory floor. Enforce lock-out/tag-out procedures.

Seinfeld’s lag metric was to become a successful comedian. Early on, he realized the path to becoming a better comedian was to write better jokes. The performance, the lag metric, was the end product. Good jokes were the foundation. As he recently said, “I have never succeeded at anything that wasn’t my material. Not one time.”
Having good jokes meant writing good jokes, every day. Having good jokes meant consistently — relentlessly — pursuing mastery.
So he hung a calendar on the wall, and every day, once he had accomplished his lead indicator — writing one new joke every day — he put a red X over that date.
As Jerry told Brad Isaac:
After a few days, you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt.
Your only job is to not break the chain.
The goal — the lag metric — informs the process for achieving that goal. A lag metric tells you what you want to happen; a lead metric describes how you will get there.
That’s the beauty of lead metrics. They’re reasonably predictive. Do the work and you will achieve some level of success.
Which makes lead metrics much more important than lag metrics, because doing the work, day after day — pursuing mastery, day after day — is the only way that success will follow.
Try it. Pick a goal. Pick a lag metric. Then reverse engineer the lead metrics that will get you there.
If you want to hit $30,000 in sales per month, use your current results to determine how many additional leads and sales calls you need to generate and make. Then create a daily process, and commit to checking off the boxes on your calendar.
If you want to improve safety, focus on lead metrics that predict success. Mandatory equipment. Refresher training. Even how long it takes a manager to respond to an accident report, since a rapid response indicates a commitment to finding and eliminating root causes. Then track those lead metrics, because they give you a much better chance of hitting your lag metric.
Choose lead metrics that predict success, and then track your performance to those metrics — because success is achieved by doing the right things, day after day after day.
By pursuing mastery.
And while you might not always love the process, you will love the result, especially in terms of how it makes you feel.
Because happiness and fulfillment comes not from what you get at the end of the long journey towards mastery… but from how it makes you feel.
About yourself.
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/jerry-seinfeld-just-said-lifelong-success-happiness-fulfillment-comes-down-to-just-2-words.html?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INC%20-%20This%20Morning%20Newsletter.Newsletter%20-%20Inc%20-%20This%20Morning%205-9-24&leadId=1548979&mkt_tok=NjEwLUxFRS04NzIAAAGS_BvK9IFA6dzPsbaaq72JYu0YQX2eaeKjBoqsuH4c32n0o_oGiSXSaqW3eJLESrxFQxa46JBB9T7Sb6SDn5_7RdtV6u-FSJUJ8qSold74xC0

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 May 08 2024

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1. 10-Year “Safe” Treasury Bond on Pace for 3rd Decline in 4 Year

@Charlie Bilello
@Charlie Bilello The 10-Year Treasury Bond is down 3.6% in 2024, on pace for its 3rd decline in the last 4 years. That hasn’t happened since 1956-59.

2. European Financials Break-Out to New Highs

UBS numbers kicked Euro financials to new highs 

3. European Financials vs. U.S. Regional Banks

Since end of 2022 EUFN outperforming regional U.S. banks.

4. KWEB China Internet ETF vs. QQQ

Follow up to yesterday…KWEB sees first outperformance in years.

5. URA-Uranium Break-Out

https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2024/05/03/the-compound-and-friends-55/

6. Countries with Highest Crypto Ownership

7. Remote Work Move to Small Towns

Bloomberg- By Michael Sasso
The remote work boom that prompted Americans to flee urban areas for mountain hamlets and seaside towns during the pandemic continued at least through last year, according to University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard. An estimated 291,400 people last year migrated from other areas into America’s small towns and rural areas, which Lombard defines as metropolitan areas with 250,000 people or fewer.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-07/record-wave-of-americans-fled-big-cities-for-small-ones-in-2023?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_medium=social&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&sref=GGda9y2L

8. Share of Income Needed to Cover Housing Higher than 2008 Crisis….2010-2021 Affordable Housing Apex

WSJ By Eric Wallerstein

https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/rising-stocks-home-prices-young-americans-left-behind-ae941b64

9. Americans Local News Moves Online

Pew Research

10. Six Things You Can Do to Stop Worrying

Today
Amen Clinic
Do you worry too much? Do you fret about every little thing in life? Are you constantly stressed about work, health, finances, and more? Maybe you even worry about your worrying.
Some people call this “what if disease” or “worst-case scenario disease,” but it can actually be a sign of a mental health disorder. If chronic worrying is interfering with your daily routine and diminishing your quality of life, it’s time to take action.
Are you constantly worried about your work, health, finances, relationship, children, pets, and more? Some people call this “what if disease,” but it can actually be a sign of a mental health disorder.CLICK TO TWEET
This blog will introduce you to the consequences of constant worry, what makes some people more prone to worry, and how to stop worrying so you can feel happier.
WHAT IS CHRONIC WORRYING?
Chronic worry occurs when someone is unable to manage their worries. If you fall into this category, you may find that anxious thoughts tend to loop endlessly in your mind. And these fearful thoughts persist even in the lack of a direct threat.
Worriers are often preoccupied with distressing thoughts about a wide range of things, including:

  • Health and the possibility of getting or being ill
  • Family issues
  • Romantic relationships and friendships
  • Career
  • Financial issues
  • World affairs
  • Other issues

When you are constantly fretting about what might go wrong, it can make it very difficult to relax. Chronic stress may lead to hypervigilance, which is being overly aware of your surroundings and potential dangers. You may also have a sense of impending doom, expecting something to go wrong at any moment.
It’s important to understand that some anxiety and worry is a good thing. It helps you be prepared.
However, chronic worry can be mentally exhausting and physically draining. It is associated with mental health disorders, such as anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. On the physical side, it can lead to muscle tension, a nervous stomach, loose bowels, high blood pressure, increased risk of viral and bacterial infections, and more.
WORRYING IN THE BRAIN
The brain-imaging work using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans at Amen Clinics shows that people who tend to be worriers often have busy brain. In particular, there is too much activity in an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG).
Located deep in the middle of the frontal lobes, this fascinating region is involved in shifting your attention from one thought to another and from one activity to another. When there is heightened brain activity here, people tend to get stuck.
Often due to low serotonin levels in the brain, overactivity in the ACG is common in people who get locked into negative thoughts or behaviors. They have trouble seeing options in situations and stay focused on those worst-case scenarios.
Optimizing this part of the mind involves increasing serotonin levels and brain training techniques to stop getting stuck on worries.
6 WAYS TO STOP CHRONIC WORRYING

  1. Eat foods that increase serotonin levels.

Research shows there are two ways that food can increase serotonin levels. First, foods high in simple carbohydrates—such as pastas, potatoes, breads, pastries, pretzels, and popcorn—increase insulin levels.
Second, the uptick in insulin raises the amount of L-tryptophan that enters the brain. Tryptophan is a natural amino acid building block for serotonin. With more tryptophan in the brain, more of it is converted to serotonin.
The calming effect of serotonin can often be felt in 30 minutes or less by eating these foods. This may be one of the reasons simple carbohydrates are so addictive.
Be aware that over time, simple carbohydrates can cause high blood-sugar levels that are associated with brain atrophy and some types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. For a healthier way to boost serotonin, opt for complex carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes and garbanzo beans.

  1. Exercise on a regular basis.

Physical activity can be helpful in calming worries and increasing cognitive flexibility. Exercise works by increasing brain levels of tryptophan, according to research.
In addition, exercise increases your energy levels and may distract you from the worrisome thoughts that tend to loop in your mind. When you find yourself focusing on stressful thoughts, take an exercise break.
Go for a brisk walk, do a few dance moves, try a few yoga poses, or engage in some other form of exercise. It can help take your mind off your worries.

  1. Practice “Thought Stopping.”

Whenever you notice thoughts looping or getting stuck in your head, imagine seeing a traffic stop sign in your head and silently saying to yourself, “STOP. THIS IS MY ACG GETTING STUCK!” For some people, the more actively they stop these thoughts, the more control they develop over them.
Keep a journal where you note how many times you use thought stopping each day. It’s likely the number of times you’ll need this intervention will decrease as you gain better control.

  1. Notice when you’re stuck, distract yourself and come back later.

A primary way to overcome a busy anterior cingulate gyrus is to notice when you’re stuck on a thought and do something to distract yourself. Becoming aware of circular or looping thoughts is essential to gaining control over them.
Distraction is often a very helpful technique. Get up and do something else. For example, try singing your favorite song, do a few stretches, or read an article.

  1. Think through answers before automatically saying no.

As mentioned, many worriers imagine the worst things that can happen. Because of this, when asked to do something, these people have an automatic tendency to say no. Fight this tendency.
Before answering questions or responding to requests in a negative way, take a breath and think for a moment. If you automatically envision a bad outcome, practice thinking about a good outcome. Is that good scenario more likely to happen than the bad one? If so, say yes.

  1. Write out options and solutions when you feel stuck.

When you’re stuck on a stressful thought, it is often helpful to write it down. Writing it down helps to get it out of your head. Seeing a thought on paper makes it easier to deal with it in a rational way.
When repetitive worries interfere with sleep, keep a pen and paper near your bed to write them out. After you write out a thought that has “gotten stuck,” generate a list of things you can do about it and things you can’t do about it. Practice focusing your energy on the things you can control about a situation and stop dwelling on what you can’t control.

https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/6-things-stop-worrying-today/

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 May 07 2024

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1. AAPL Bought Back the Equivalent of Boeing Market Cap in One Day

@Charlie Bilello
@Charlie Bilello Apple is the undisputed king of buybacks. Over the past decade, it has bought back $625 billion in stock. That’s greater than the market cap of 492 companies in the S&P 500.

2. Warren Buffett Sold $135B AAPL Stock and Bought T-Bills

AAPL still Buffett largest holding by far but….

Wolf Street Converting Apple shares to T-bills.

While loading up on T-bills – of which the government has been issuing a tsunami on a weekly basis – BRK dumped 13% of its stake in Apple in Q1, or about 116 million shares, after having sold about 10 million shares in the prior quarter. Apple remains BRK’s largest stock position, with a value of $135.4 billion on March 31, according to BRK’s 10-Q filing today.

Obviously, Buffett praised Apple and the stock, because BRK was still holding $135.4 billion as of March 31, and he doesn’t want to tank the shares before he can unload more of them.

But he did sell Apple, and bought T-bills with the proceeds, instead of other stocks, and that ballooning pile of interest-earning cash became a topic at the shareholder meeting on Saturday, and he was asked why he wasn’t putting this cash to work – though it’s actually working just fine, producing 5%-plus risk free.

https://wolfstreet.com/2024/05/06/buffett-invests-in-t-bills-instead-of-stocks-waits-for-bad-stuff-to-happen-cash-is-king-at-5-plus/

AAPL Below 2023 Highs

3. Big Tech Has Acquired 870+ Companies

4. Tech Returns Post Earnings Beats Q1

5. ETF Outflows Excessive in Chinese Tech?

From Irrelevant Investor Blog interview with Jeff DeGraff

https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2024/05/03/the-compound-and-friends-55/

6. KWEB Chinese Internet ETF Beating QQQ YTD

50day thru 200 day to upside….+17% year to date

7. Total Sovereign and Corporate Debt Hits $100 Trillion Mark

8. Russia’s military is so hard up for manpower that it now pays more than the oil and gas sector-Business Insider

Huileng Tan 

  • Russia has a manpower crunch because of its war with Ukraine.
  • Russia’s military is paying more in sign-on bonuses and salaries than the oil and gas sector.
  • Russia’s oil and gas revenues have been keeping its war chest filled.

Russia is facing a labor crisis as its war with Ukraine siphons manpower away from the country’s economy.

The manpower crunch has gotten so bad that the Russian military is now offering sign-on bonuses and salaries that are so competitive that even the country’s lucrative oil and gas industry isn’t keeping up, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Russia’s oil and gas sector has been paying wages that are at least two-thirds higher than the national average wage since 2017, per Bloomberg calculations based on official data.
That’s no longer the case.

In January and February, workers in Russia’s oil and gas sector took home about 125,200 rubles, or $1,370, in monthly nominal salary, per the media outlet.

But the Russian army is now offering incentives to contract soldiers, including a nationwide sign-on bonus of 195,000 rubles, according to a Russian government portal. Each region in the country also offers an additional one-time payment of up to 1 million rubles, per Bloomberg.

The salary of a contract soldier starts at 210,000 rubles per month.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-manpower-crunch-military-bonus-pay-salary-oil-gas-2024-5

9. The U.S. Needs Babies

The Daily Shot Brief Food for Thought: US births hit a multi-decade low.

Source: @jessicanix_, @business 
 https://dailyshotbrief.com

10. How to Foster and Sustain Team Motivation 

Psychology Today Harness the power of psychological needs within your team

Marylène Gagné Ph.D.
THE BASICS

KEY POINTS

  • Enhancing your teammates’ psychological needs promotes better team motivation. 
  • Monitor how leadership styles, reward systems, and external pressures affect your team’s motivation. 
  • Better support from your external environment may be required for healthy internal team motivation.

Do you belong to a work or sports team? Do the members of your team share the same motivationor goals or are they misaligned? What could you do to get everyone in your team to be more aligned and adopt the right type of motivation that will lead your team to succeed?
We often hear about how team leaders and organisations should structure, lead, and reward teams for them to be effective. But have we paid enough attention to what team members can contribute to their own internal team dynamics?
I recently co-authored an article with Simon Grenier from the Université de Montréal and Thomas O’Neill from the University of Calgary that might help you. In it, we present a model, based on self-determination theory, from which we can derive a simple key strategy to foster healthy team motivation: Ensuring the satisfaction of every team member’s psychological needs. Here’s how it works:

Supporting Psychological Needs

As a team member, you can help foster high autonomous team motivation(that is, motivation based on meaning and enjoyment toward team activities) by supporting your teammates’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. For example, you can provide your teammates with choices and constructive feedback, and promote the inclusion of all points of view. If enough teammates adopt these supportive behaviors, it will create a virtuous cycle of interactions that leads your team to develop norms of support over time.
Easier said than done right? Yes. What do you need for supportive norms to develop? First, you must consider the initial motivation of team members at a team’s inception or during the formative phase where team members get to know each other and learn about what they will work on together. If team members are primarily motivated by rewards or status (i.e., controlled motivation), they are less likely to support the needs of their teammates. If they are motivated by meaning and enjoyment, they are more likely to support their teammates’ needs. Selecting team members with the right motivation or fostering that initial motivation through good task design and leadershipcan make a difference.
Once the cogs are in motion within the team, here is what is likely to happen. First, team members’ motivations are likely to become more similar over time. If you satisfy needs, individual motivations are likely to converge towards becoming more autonomous. In other words, when members’ needs are supported, they are more likely to internalize team goals and focus on their importance and on enjoying the process of working on goal accomplishment. If you thwart needs, individual motivations are likely to converge toward becoming more controlled or losing motivation altogether.
Second, members will forge an identity to the team if autonomous motivation is cultivated. In other words, when members pursue team goals out of meaning and enjoyment, they are likely to make their team an important aspect of their self-identity, which in turn further fosters the endorsement of team norms and goals.
Third, working for the same reasons (i.e., motivations) and sharing a common identity is likely to facilitate both explicit and implicit coordination that is essential to team performance. Explicit coordination includes discussing and agreeing on strategies and logistics, while implicit coordination involves monitoring each other and adapting to others’ behaviors without explicit communication (think of a flock of birds or a school of fish moving in unison).
Finally, look at how the external context of a team is likely to influence internal collective motivation. Is your team under the leadership of a tyrant leader who can undo any effort at supporting needs within your team or worse, serves as a role model for team members to thwart each other’s psychological needs? Is your team contingently rewarded in a way that primarily encourages controlled forms of motivation within your team? Is your team under high pressure or is it struggling to survive? These can negatively impact both the motivation of team members and your team’s internal support dynamics. Advocating for better external support from your external environment (e.g., your organization) might be required to ensure you can maintain healthy internal team motivation. 
This post was co-authored with Simon Grenier from the Université de Montréal.
 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/getting-up-on-monday-morning/202405/how-to-foster-and-sustain-team-motivation

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 May 06 2024

Daily Top Ten No Comments

1. Warren Buffett vs. S&P 25 Year Chart

Slight lag vs. S&P

From Abnormal Returns Blog www.abnormalreturns.com

2. History of Returns Post 5 Months of Gains

3. Returns During Fed Pause Phases

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading
Stock performance is typically varied during the pauses, but positive on average, Bloomberg notes.

4. PARA Takeover Bids…Stocks Still Negative YTD 2024

5. Starbucks Stock Now Negative 5-Year Return

6. Defensive Utility Sector +5% One Month

XLU 50day thru 200day to upside beginning of April

7. Gold vs. Yen

Gold’s Rise Against the Yen

Source: Bloomberg   From Zerohedge www.zerohedge.com

8. Active Managed ETF Growth

Active ETFs Activate:  On the other hand, active ETFs have taken off. Goes to show, you can either bemoan and suffer from a new dynamic such as the rise of passive investing and ETFs, or ride that trend.

Source: mahmood noorani

9. Russian energy giant Gazprom reported its first annual loss in 24 years amid Western sanctions

Business Insider
A sign advertises Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom, in Moscow, Russia. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

  • Russian energy giant Gazprom posted its first annual loss since 1999.
  • The West’s ban on Russia’s energy exports, combined with macro factors, dragged profits.
  • The oil company also projected fewer investments for 2024. 

Russian energy producer Gazprom Group reported its first annual loss in 24 years, with restricted energy flows to Europe a leading factor in dragging down earnings. 
Gazprom, which is majority-owned by the Russian government, saw a net loss of 629 billion rubles, equivalent to about $6.84 billion last year, marking a sharp drop from 1.23 trillion rubles in 2022, according to an earnings report published Thursday and first reported by Bloomberg. 
It marks the first annual net loss for the energy giant since 1999, largely due to restricted flows to Europe and lower fuel prices following the West’s sanctions over Moscow’s war against Ukraine. 
The market reacted by sparking a 4.4% drop in the company’s share price, the largest decline in more than a year. 
Gazprom’s report also revealed a 40% drop in gas revenue to 4.88 trillion rubles ($52.6 billion USD). International Energy Agency data indicates that gas flows to Europe hit their lowest levels since the early 1970s. 
The financial loss was also driven by broader energy market factors, including plunging gas prices, lackluster demand, and overflowing inventories.
Meanwhile, Gazprom has outlined investments totaling 2.57 trillion rubles for this year, indicating a reduction of nearly 16% compared to its projections for 2023.
Once a booming market for Russia’s gas exports, Europe has placed hefty restrictions on the country’s energy outflows to the continent since the war in Ukraine started. Russia has managed to reroute much of its energy flows to other countries such as China and India.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/russia-oil-gas-energy-flows-gazprom-sanctions-ukraine-war-putin-2024-5?_gl=1*eglwm7*_ga*MTcwNTA0MjU4My4xNjYxMzU3MTY0*_ga_E21CV80ZCZ*MTcxNDY3NTUxMS4xMDUuMS4xNzE0Njc3OTQxLjYwLjAuMA..

10. Warren Buffett’s warning about AI 🧐

SAM RO, CFA
The See’s Candies exhibit at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2024 annual meeting. (Source: Sam Ro)
OMAHA, Neb. — Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has mixed feelings about artificial intelligence (AI).

“It has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm,“ Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual shareholders meeting on Saturday.
He shared a personal experience with AI that had him shook.
“Fairly recently, I saw an image in front of my screen,” he said. “It was me, and it was my voice and wearing the kind of clothes I wear. My wife or my daughter wouldn’t have been able to detect any difference. And it was delivering a message that in no way it came from me.”
He explained: “When you think about the potential for scamming people… Scamming has always been part of the American scene. If I was interested in investing in scamming— it’s gonna be the growth industry of all time.”

Warren Buffett speaks at the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. (Source: CNBC)
Buffett drew comparisons to the emergence of nuclear weapons.

“We let the genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons, and that genie has been doing some terrible things,“ he said. “The power of that genie scares the hell out of me. And I don’t know of any way to get the genie back in the bottle. And AI is somewhat similar. It’s part of the way out of the bottle.”
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger bobble heads. (Source: Sam Ro)

In the context of investing, analysts have mostly spoken bullishly about AI thanks to the potential for improving productivity across many sectors. TKer has written about this narrative here, here, and here.
Asked later about how Berkshire’s own businesses could be disrupted by AI, Buffett noted the technology would affect “anything that’s labor sensitive” and that for workers it could “create an enormous amount of leisure time.”

Greg Abel, vice chairman of Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, added that “we’re in the early innings” of understanding the impact.

Buffett has taken this tone before 👂

Buffett, arguably the most successful stock market investor in history, is well-known for his persistent bullish long-term view of the U.S. economy and stock market.
“I understand the United States’ rules, weaknesses, strengths,” Buffett said on Saturday. “I don’t have the same feeling generally around the world. And the lucky thing is that I don’t have to.”
But he’s no stranger to expressing caution on matters with significant downside risks — especially in regards to technology.

For example, Buffett has been vocal about his concerns about cyber attacks. Here’s some language I shared in the March 5, 2023 issue of TKer:

“There is, however, one clear, present and enduring danger to Berkshire against which Charlie and I are powerless. That threat to Berkshire is also the major threat our citizenry faces: a ‘successful’ (as defined by the aggressor) cyber, biological, nuclear or chemical attack on the United States.“ – Buffett in 2016
“I don’t know that much about cyber, but I do think that’s the number one problem with mankind.” – Buffett in 2017
“Cyber is uncharted territory. It’s going to get worse, not better.” – Buffett in 2018
“I think cyber poses real risks to humanity.” – Buffett in 2019

As you can see, this dire tone from Buffett is not new.
What’s important is that it has never stopped him from being bullish on stocks for the long run.

Zooming out 🔭
Emerging technologies like AI come with risk, as they have the potential to scale up bad behavior in the same ways they’ll scale up good behavior.

Broadly speaking, you can never be certain about how risky anything is. And even worse, there are limits to how much you can hedge a risk before you eliminate the potential for a reasonable return.
Unfortunately, this is just the nature of investing in stocks. And it speaks to why returns in the stock market are relatively high — investors demand a high premium for the uncertainty tied to taking on the risk.

“Nothing’s sure tomorrow,” Buffett said at last year’s meeting. “Nothing’s sure next year. Nothing is ever sure in markets or in business forecasts or anything else.”

We can only hope that history repeats, and the good outcomes far outweigh the bad outcomes — as they always have.

https://www.tker.co/p/warren-buffett-artificial-intelligence-warning   Found at Abnormal Returns Blog www.abnormalreturns.com