DHUnplugged #643: Doomsday Meltdown

Markets are feeling the pain of a Fed that just can’t make up its mind.

Earnings from retail – not so good.

Global warming is the reason for this all!

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Warm Up
- A quick apology to Hobby Lobby
- Inflation ticking up - CPI and PPI not what the market wanted
- Change up, this Zip Code - now most expensive in country
- Arctic melt is coming - Doomsday Glacier
- WHAT? Water BillFlation
- Announcing the Winner of the CTP !

Market Update
- Bullard and Mester - Not liking the markets euphoria (50bps talk coming back)
-- Ever since they opened their mouth - market been in a tailspin
- Bird Flu - expanding - watch out chicken and egg prices
- Tesla flying high - stock back in vogue
- All-time high's for this country's main stock market
- Earnings finishing off - mixed bag, but points to concerning quarters to come

Bad Bullard (H/T Bespoke)

Bullard Speaks

Continuing on....
- Worst day of the year today...
- S&P 500 Down 2%, DJIA off by 700pts (2%, NASDAQ down 2.5%
- 10-year climbing toward 4% again|
- Blame placed on unusual strength of the economy - turning better last several weeks.

Water Bill
- $1,578 this month at the house - that is inflation!
- Full Story - No Leaks

Hot Real Estate
- Miami’s Star Island is now the nation’s most expensive neighborhood while the number of New York City areas where buying a home would set you back at least $1 million is on the decline, according to a new survey.
- The average price of a single family home on Star Island, the man-made enclave off the coast of Miami Beach that is home to celebrities including Shaquille O’Neal, Gloria Estefan, and Rosie O’Donnell, was valued at an eye-popping $40.2 million as of December, according to Zillow.
- 71% increase over 3 years
- Star Island is now four times as expensive as Beverly Hills Gateway in Beverly Hills
- NY real estate not lagging behind by much
--- January average rent for Manhattan apartment - ALL TIME HIGH

Bird Flu
- Could bolster inflation (food) again
- Outbreaks of the virus have continued in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa
- Farmers thinking about vaccines - once unheard of
- A company farm in Weld County, Colorado, was infected twice within about six months, killing more than 3 million chickens, Rust said. He thinks wind blew the virus in from nearby fields where geese defecated.

Twitter
- The Taco Bell of social media - introducing a new product update almost daily
- Twitter said on Friday it will allow only paid subscribers to use text messages as a two-factor authentication (2FA) method to secure their accounts.
- The company believes phone-number-based 2FA is being abused by "bad actors,"
- Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted "Yup" in reply to a user tweet that the company was changing policy "because Telcos Used Bot Accounts to Pump 2FA SMS," and that the company was losing $60 million a year "on scam SMS."

Glacier melting
- Antarctica's vast Thwaites Glacier - nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier - say warm water is seeping into its weak spots, worsening melting caused by rising temperatures
- Thwaites, which is roughly the size of Florida, represents more than half a meter (1.6 feet) of global sea level rise potential, and could destabilize neighboring glaciers that have the potential to cause a further three-meter (9.8-foot) rise.
- Is this concern all about the displacement of the above the line ice?

Brexit - Who Cares
- The FTSE 100 is at an all-time high.
- With all of the problems in Europe, world... ALL TIME HIGH
- Obviously the best decision England made was to leave the EU

Cisco Earnings
- The company that is all about IoT
- Earnings: 88 cents per share, adjusted, vs. 86 cents per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
- Revenue: $13.59 billion, vs. $13.43 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
- Cisco's total revenue grew 7% year over year in the quarter, which ended Jan. 28, according to a statement. Net income decreased about 7% to $2.77 billion.
- The company called for fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 96 cents to 98 cents per share and 11% to 13% revenue growth. (much better than expected)
- benefiting from BUY AMERICAN (or don't buy China?)

More Earnings
- Dillard's -9.2% heads sharply lower following earnings; dragging down other department store chains: KSS -7.6%, M -5.4%, JWN -3.8%
- - Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $14.51 per share, excluding items, $5.66 better than the single analyst estimate of $8.85; revenues rose 0.7% year/year to $2.13 bln vs the $2.15 bln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.
----- DO NOT TRADE THIS STOCK - Low Float, manipulated
- Home Depot - Not a bad quarter - guides very defensively
--- For the first time in several years, HD's comparable sales declined on a yr/yr basis, coming in at -0.3% for the quarter. While the company did lap a challenging yr/yr comp of +8.1%, the 6.0% drop in customer transactions this quarter, on top of a 3.4% decline in the year-ago quarter, points to weakening demand, particularly in the do-it-yourself (DIY) business.
- Wal- Mart - Not bad, maybe conservative guidance?
---- Walmart beats by $0.20, beats on revs; comps +8.3% above guidance; guides Q1 EPS below consensus; guides FY24 EPS below consensus
- Coinbase - Earnings: Loss of $2.46 per share, vs. loss of $2.55 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Revenue: $629 million, vs. $590 million as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
----- Revenue plunged nearly 75% from a year earlier as the so-called crypto winter continued to drag on the price of cryptocurrencies. The company also reported a (non-adjusted) net loss of $557 million, a year after Coinbase generated net income of $840 million during the peak of crypto adoption.
-----???? How is this company losing money if their main competition was recently closed?

JCD Nails It
- Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw told CNBC he thinks it's safe for families to return to East Palestine, Ohio, nearly three weeks after toxic chemicals were released following a train derailment earlier this month.
- Shaw said the company so far removed about 450 cubic yards of contaminated soil and secured about 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water. He said the company will continue to "do the right thing for this community" and see the recovery effort all the way through. He did not lay out a time frame.
- US Govy trying to get ahead of it - pointing and wagging fingers, blaming Norfolk Southern

UK - 4-Day
- British companies trialling a four-day working week have mostly decided to stick with it after a six-month pilot in what campaigners for better work-life balance view as a breakthrough.
- Employees at 61 companies across Britain worked an average of 34 hours across four days between June and December 2022, while earning their existing salary.
- Of those, 56 companies, or 92%, opted to continue like that, 18 of them permanently.

420 Stocks ...