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 Warm-Up
- Markets still unsettled
- Retail spending down - another bankruptcy (but who they blame?)
- Consumer frayed
- Announcement #1 Closest to the Pin is a good one...
- Announcement # 2 New DH Shirts - attention collectors...
- March madness - BBall and Markets

Markets
-Worst month since 2023 - and it is not over
- USD is dropping - loss of confidence
- Gold - keeps shining - wow what a run!
- Revenge of the Dems on Markets? Tesla stock pummeled...(We initiated a new position on this drop - today)
- US Stocks  - where is the money going?

Attention Collectors! 
- The New DHUnplugged shirts are finally here! We are going to sell only 6 - the donations received by this Friday - March 21 above $250 will get a shirt - Nice white swim/light long sleeve. (The rest are reserved for winners and special occasions) - We will also have the #1 as the first shirt ever out to the public for $1,000.
-  Put your address and size in the comments

Consumer Confidence
- The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March experienced a significant drop, falling to 57.9 compared to the Briefing.com consensus of 65.6 and the final reading of 64.7 in February. This marked the third consecutive decline in consumer sentiment.
--- A year ago during the same period, the index stood notably higher at 79.4.
- Several key factors contributed to this decline.
-- The Current Economic Conditions Index decreased from 65.7 to 63.5, down from 82.5 a year earlier.
-- Similarly, the Index of Consumer Expectations saw a sharp drop from 64.0 to 54.2, compared to 77.4 a year ago.
-- Inflation expectations also played a significant role, with year-ahead inflation expectations climbing from 4.3% to 4.9%, marking the highest level since November 2022.
--- Additionally, long-run inflation expectations increased from 3.5% to 3.9%, the largest month-over-month rise since 1993.
!--The overarching takeaway from the report was that the decline in sentiment affected various demographic groups across age, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions, with inflation concerns and policy uncertainty emerging as critical factors behind the drop.

Consumer Confidence

Private Equity
- Time Bomb Twitter post?
- Yes, agree PE is getting too mainstream and not a good amount of liquidity - not right for most investors
- Is it the next bomb waiting to happen?

HANG ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Jeremy Siegel is sayibg market could go lower (Tom Lee !!!! We need you!!!!)
- Speaking on current market conditions, Siegel pointed to several risk factors that could push stocks lower in the near term. Key concerns include persistently high inflation, Federal Reserve policy decisions, and growing fears of an economic slowdown. While markets have shown resilience in recent months, he believes investors may be overly optimistic about the trajectory of interest rates and economic growth.
- “The market has priced in a near-perfect landing,” Siegel said, referencing investor expectations that the Fed will successfully bring inflation down without triggering a recession.
- However, he warns that there are still significant headwinds that could derail this outlook.

Retail
- Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in six years on Sunday and blamed fast-fashion e-tailers Shein and Temu for its demise.
- The retailer's operating company is expected to cease all operations in the U.S. and has already begun liquidation sales at its more than 350 locations, but it's still open for bids if a buyer is willing to take on its inventory and keep running its stores, court filings show.
- Forever 21 has been seeking a buyer for several months and made contact with more than 200 potential bidders, 30 of which signed confidentiality agreements, but no viable deal has come together

Following the money
- Money flowing out of the US and clearly into other areas (with better valuations) around the world.

China
- China's economic data for the first two months of the year showed a modest pickup as Beijing reiterated its plan to bolster domestic consumption.
- China's markets are also doing pretty good
- Retail sales rose by 4.0% in the January-February period from a year ago, compared with the 3.7% year-on-year growth in December and in line with Reuters estimates.
- Industrial production climbed 5.9% in the first two months of the year from a year ago, slower than the 6.2% growth in December, but faster than a 5.3% expansion forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.
- Fixed asset investment, reported on a year-to-date basis, rose by 4.1%, beating the 3.6% growth estimated by economists

Europe
- Germany’s Bundestag on Tuesday voted in favor of a major fiscal package, which includes changes to long-standing debt policies to enable higher defense spending and a 500 billion euro ($548 billion) infrastructure and climate fund.
- German markets hitting ATH
- European markets up and investors helped by Euro moving higher as well

Select Markets - Compared to US Markets
- EEM up 8% YTD
- China - up 24%
- EFA up 11.7%
- Gold - Up 13%
- Crude - Down 4%
- Copper up 22%

Spin Masters (Is this the right spin?)
- Treasury Secty Bessent - said Sunday that the Trump administration is focused on preventing a financial crisis that could be the result of massive government spending over the past few years.
- “What I could guarantee is we would have had a financial crisis. I’ve studied it, I’ve taught it, and if we had kept up at these spending levels that -- everything was unsustainable,” Bessent said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
- “We are resetting, and we are putting things on a sustainable path.”
- Bessent noted that there are “no guarantees” there won’t be a recession.
- “I’ve been in the investment business for 35 years, and I can tell you that corrections are healthy. They’re normal,” he said. “What’s not healthy is straight up, that you get these euphoric markets.
- - That’s how you get a financial crisis. It would have been much healthier if someone had put the brakes on in ’06, ’07. We wouldn’t have had the problems in ’08.”

DOGE - Pain before Gain?
- Two companies led by billionaire DOGE chief Elon Musk — SpaceX and Tesla have submitted letters lobbying the U.S. trade representative on Trump administration tariff policies.
- But the two companies had different messages for U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
-- The electric vehicle maker Tesla warned of the negative effect on its bottom line from tariffs and from duties imposed by other countries on U.S.-made products in retaliation for those tariffs.
- SpaceX complained that operating costs for its Starlink internet satellite service are increased by trade barriers abroad, while foreign competitors face no such costs in the United States.
--- It seems that the letters were not signed - so deniability is there for the reaction?

Lutnik on the Economy
- Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick argued Wednesday that former President Joe Biden — not his boss, President Donald Trump — is to blame for recent negative economic data and a plunge in stock prices.
- When is the cut off for the economy and stock market for ex-President?
- When asked recently about the negative eco data:
- - - "You're looking at Biden data," Lutnick retorted.
- - - "Do not try to besmirch my President Trump with Biden's nonsense," Lutnick said.,

Airline News
- Frontier Airlines on Tuesday announced new amenities for travelers including a promotion for a free checked bag after competitor Southwest Airlines ended its free bags policy.
- In interview, CEO said they will test this through August and it should show their lower cost and their better service as compared to rival Southwest.

Google News
- Google will buy cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion to boost the tech giant’s in-house cloud computing amid burgeoning artificial intelligence growth.
- The all-cash acquisition announced Tuesday would be Google’s biggest in its 26-year history, and it is the biggest deal of 2025.
- Wiz will join Google Cloud, boosting Google’s in-house cloud security in the era of AI, the companies said.
- “Wiz and Google Cloud are both fueled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratized, so more organizations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely,” Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport said in a blog post.
- Wiz, based in New York, was founded in 2020 and makes security tools designed to protect information stored in remote data centers.

Adobe
- Photoshop and other Adobe products finally have competition - that is real
- Canva cutting into margins
- Adobe posted decent earnings but stock well off
- Peaked at about $550 at the start of 2025 - now $389

OOOPS
- Almost made the same mistake again
- Citigroup mistakenly credit a customer's account with $81 trillion last year when it meant to send just $280.
- The payment, which took place last April, was missed by two employees but caught 90 minutes after it was posted
- Can you imagine?

From Microst Blog
- After 21 year run -MSFT is shutting down Skype after May 2025
- "In order to streamline our free consumer communications offerings so we can more easily adapt to customer needs, we will be retiring Skype in May 2025 to focus on Microsoft Teams (free), our modern communications and collaboration hub.?"

 

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Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?

ANNOUNCING - Closest to The Pin for
Tesla (TSLA)

Winners will be getting great stuff like the new DHUnplugged Shirt!

 

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