Oh my. I really like coffee...but quitting over it. I guess the employees showed them a thing or two about removing the free coffee cart. I guess when you give out tons of free stuff for so long people expect it. They were probably in that bottom 5% that is annually cut and could see it coming.
Some news on US CHIP plants... Micron breaks ground on $15 billion U.S. chip plant, says more to come soon (Reuters) - Micron Technology Inc, the biggest U.S. memory chip company, on Monday will break ground for a $15 billion factory in Boise, Idaho, and its chief executive told Reuters an announcement of another new U.S. plant will be coming soon. "We are in final stages of another high volume manufacturing site that is going to be announced in the coming weeks," CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. Both plants will produce DRAM chips that are widely used in data centers, personal computers and other devices. Once operational, U.S. plants will account for 40% of Micron's DRAM production volume globally, up from 10% today, Mehrotra said. The Boise factory will be operational in 2025, he said. Micron said this will be the first new memory chip factory built in the United States in 20 years, and will create 2,000 Micron jobs by the end of the decade. Since U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Chips and Science Act, which provides $52 billion to support home grown semiconductor manufacturing, a slew of companies have announced plans to make chips in the United States. Intel Corp on Friday broke ground on a $20 billion factory in Ohio to build cutting edge processor chips. While Micron once made chips in Boise where it got its start, volume manufacturing has moved away and it has big production centers in places like Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. The company's core research and development operation has remained in Boise. Having manufacturing and R&D together will help accelerate the time to market, the CEO said. Mehrotra said the U.S. investments do not represent a move away from Asian countries. "This is not about divesting from manufacturing in any other part of the world, or bringing back manufacturing. This is about increasing," he said. "To meet the growing demand for memory, we have to increase our production," he said, adding that the "Chips and Science bill enables it to be increased here in the U.S." Micron has previously said it will be investing $150 billion through the decade, $40 billion of that in the United States. Mehrotra said that includes funds for research and development, the cost of which is increasing with advanced technologies.
I am STILL up by about the same dollar amount today as I was earlier. BUT.....now I have three stocks DOWN.....NVDA, HD, and GOOGL. the averages are looking good. The danger today will be the last hour or so......the DEADLY LATE DAY FADE.
To return to one of my favorite topics...mentioned earlier today. Wall Street’s most coddled generation is in for a rude office-return awakening https://nypost.com/2022/09/03/coddled-wall-streeters-in-for-a-rude-back-to-the-office-awakening/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "The most coddled generation that Wall Street has ever encountered is about to find out what it means to really go to work. That is the word coming from the C-suites of the big banks — Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The CEOs of these firms made their bones back in the day when the price paid for a lucrative career on Wall Street was long hours while being screamed at by your boss. Now they want to turn back the clock — even if that means getting on the wrong side of the influx of pampered millennials and Gen-Z’ers whom they needed to hire during the long bull market. They won’t say this publicly, of course, but they’re secretly welcoming the looming economic and Wall Street deal-making slowdown as a way to reassert control over the woke masses. The stock market and deal-making boom extended incredible leverage to a class of Wall Street employees brainwashed by woke college professors and administrators into believing any and all of their feelings are important and existential, including not wanting to work so hard. Wall Street, despite its Darwinian rep, succumbed to the pressure, transforming itself into something like a college safe space because it needed entry- and associate-level bodies to process deals and trades, and faced competition for talent from Big Tech. That meant more perks for the grunts of the business (think stuff like free Pelotons on top of higher pay), flexible work hours and demands to work from home well after the worst of the COVID pandemic subsided. It also meant accepting the mores of the new generation even if it meant lower productivity. Wall Street execs used to brag that they slept in the office under their desk when big deals were on the line. Now the up-and-comers embrace something known as “quiet quitting” where doing the bare minimum is the norm. How’s that for Wall Street grunt work? For my money, this pampering weirdness reached peak absurdity when a bunch of youngish Goldman lefty associates in Manhattan had a meltdown because someone had the temerity to order Chick-fil-A while working late on deal-making. No, this wasn’t a fight over the health benefits of the popular chicken sandwich. As it turns out, the staffers were outraged that the then-CEO of the company believes in Jesus and is against same-sex marriage. Goldman management did an intervention to make sure those with hurt feelings could survive the trauma. (Goldman didn’t end up banning Chick-fil-A, thank God.) But times appear to be changing again. The boomers who run the big banks — Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan, James Gorman at Morgan Stanley and David Solomon at Goldman — are said to have had enough, I am told, and will use the looming deal-making slowdown and recession to show the young’uns who’s boss. With power shifting to management, last week Solomon began forcing all employees back to the office five days a week after Labor Day, The Post’s Lydia Moynihan was first to report. A companywide memo cited “significantly less risk of severe illness” while a spokeswoman cited the need to preserve the firm’s “client-centric business,” which is corporatese for “Get your rear ends to work because you’re less productive on Zoom.” As I first reported, Morgan Stanley’s head of HR issued a similar memo around the same time stating the firm is lifting its COVID protocols (i.e., testing and contact tracing) and asking employees to stop working from home because of productivity issues. JP Morgan’s Dimon isn’t far off from making office work mandatory no matter how much the woke masses complain. Ironically, it’s been the woke tech CEOs like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai who first began clamping down on the youthful angst. They were forced to demand better productivity measures because the economic slowdown hit their wallets first. Now that Wall Street is bracing for declining deal flow and probably layoffs later in the year, Solomon, Dimon and Gorman are flexing their management muscles and will likely continue to do so in ways that will annoy their pampered masses who will have increasingly less bargaining power to complain and force management to cave. And who knows? Sleeping under your desk might become cool again. MY COMMENT Some day the hiring people at these and many other companies will realize that the graduates they are hiring from the ELITE colleges are no where as productive, smart, or willing to work hard....compared to hiring graduates from all the other hundreds of colleges and universities.
To continue. Goldman Sachs to kick off Wall Street layoff season with hundreds of job cuts this month https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/12/gol...son-with-hundreds-of-job-cuts-this-month.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Goldman Sachs is planning on cutting several hundred jobs this month, making it the first major Wall Street firm to rein in expenses amid a collapse in deals volume. The bank is reinstating a tradition of annual employee culls, which have historically targeted between 1% and 5% of lower performers, in positions across the firm, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. At the lower end of that range, which is the size of the expected cull, that means several hundred job cuts at the New York-based investment bank with 47,000 employees at midyear. The bank is reinstating a tradition of annual employee culls, which have historically targeted between 1% and 5% of lower performers, in positions across the firm, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. At the lower end of that range, which is the size of the expected cull, that means several hundred job cuts at the New York-based firm, which had 47,000 employees at midyear. Goldman declined to comment on the record about its plans. The timing of the cuts was reported earlier by the New York Times. In July, CNBC was first to report that the bank was looking at a return to the annual tradition of year-end job cuts. Steep declines in investment banking activities, especially IPOs and junk debt issuance, created the conditions for the first significant layoffs on Wall Street since the pandemic began in 2020, CNBC reported in June." MY COMMENT Go ahead and "quiet quit" on your job......and.......dont be surprised when you are......not so quietly.....FIRED.
LOL.....I posted it because I thought it was funny. In reality.....I bet those old time investment bankers are pretty salty and dont put up with any BS. That is a BRUTAL and very TOUGH business.
A GREAT open to the week today in the markets. ALL the averages were in the GREEN. I was no exception.....I was strongly green in my account today. I had a single down stock out of ten today.....HD. I also managed to beat the SP500 today by 0.25%. I have now moved back out of bear market territory for the year......my current year to date LOSS is now -19%. This is versus the year to date loss for the SP500 at -13.75%. NOW.....we just need to string together enough of these nice days.....to have another positive week. Looks like a strong "chance" that we will do so.
I have now.......nicely.....erased most of the losses of the past 3.5 weeks. I should not say that "I" did it.....since I have done nothing other than sit and watch the markets.......and let my portfolio do what it wants to do. I have not made any moves or changes in my portfolio.
I just found an article to go with the little post above. Stocks close higher for fourth straight session ahead of key inflation report, Dow rises 200 points https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/11/sto...treet-looks-ahead-to-key-inflation-data-.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Stocks rose on Monday as a weaker dollar and growing confidence that inflation has peaked helped Wall Street’s relief rally continue ahead of a key inflation report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 229.63 points, or 0.71%. The S&P 500 rose 1.06%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.27%. Energy was the top sector, but the rally was broad, with Bristol-Myers Squibb gaining 3.14% and tech stalwart Apple adding 3.85%. The moves extended a rebound for U.S. stocks, as all three major averages snapped a three-week losing streak on Friday. Stocks have been volatile ahead of the Sept. 20-21 meeting of the Federal Reserve, where the central bank is expected to deliver its third consecutive 0.75 percentage point rate hike in an effort to combat high inflation. Fed officials have reiterated in recent weeks they will keep hiking rates to fight inflation even if it hurts economic growth. But some recent developments, including a weakening U.S. dollar and military success by Ukraine, appear to be boosting investor sentiment. Many traders are also optimistic about the August consumer price index report, which is scheduled for release on Tuesday morning. “The combination of the somewhat surprising successes in Ukraine, and the possible of very favorable inflation headline that maybe even shows a decline for last month, may put us into a situation where we have a continued rally here,” said Phillip Toews, CEO of Toews Asset Management. “And at that point the main threat in the short term and in the medium term will be whether earnings continue to deteriorate.”" MY COMMENT Sounds good to me. As is briefly mentioned here......we will soon be at the end of September and EARNINGS will again start to take priority. At that time we will.....no doubt.....see the usual negative earnings predictions.
I cant help it.....I sit here with a smile on my face while listening to Varney and reading my daily materials. We are now at 3.72% on the Ten year Treasury......and we are now going to see 0.75% rate increases from now till at least the end of the year. In the meantime the CPI comes in HOT and government is spending money like a drunken sailor.....stimulating the SH*T out of the economy totally undercutting the FED. As if that was not enough......they constantly push to raise taxes and fees.....in the face of a recession. Oh yes......why am I smiling and in a good mood......I am enjoying the STUPIDITY of it all. We have the CPI come in at an increase of 8.3%. It was expected to be 8.1%. So we have the markets and all the media FREAK OUT over 0.2%. If the CPI had been at 8.0%......the markets would take off like a rocket over a difference of 0.1%. Yes....this is idiocy. Can anyone feel or tell me the difference that the economy will experience with an extra 0.2% over what was expected......or how anything would be different if it had come in lower by 0.1%. AND.....who in the world designated all the so called experts calling for 8.1%.....as the arbiters of the economy. As was mentioned yesterday all these so called experts are UNIFORMLY WRONG. Sorry......the CPI at the expected number of 8.1% is NOT any different than a CPI at 8.3% or 8.0%. This is just another example of the IDIOCY of the short term markets and the market manipulation inherent in all the expert predictions and the BIG trader AI TRADING PROGRAMS.....that act in concert to manipulate the markets for short term trading.
As I said yesterday I win either way. Since the CPI came in "HOT"......I am closer to getting my BIG increase in my Social Security cost of living raise. One more month of data....September......and the increase for next year will be announced. We will get that September data in early October and they will announce the cost of living increase in about mid October. YEA.
As I continue to say.....is there anyone in the world with a brain and common sense that expected the FED to pull back. It has been eminently obvious for months now that they were going to raise by 0.75% in September and probably till the end of the year. So.......NOTHING has changed. It is funny to watch all the humans running around with their hair on fire......over this "stuff".
No doubt the talk about RECESSION will now ramp up. Never mind that we met the definition of recession many weeks ago. The media and others simply choose to ignore it and pretend that this time....it was different and the common definition did not apply. SO.......yes we are in a recession. YES.....we have been in a recession. AND......YES.....we will continue to be in a recession till the FED crashes the economy.
As an investor you can live in REALITY and in the world of COMMON SENSE. OR you can live in FANTASY LAND. It is a lot easier to be a long term investor is you actually.....SEE.....what is happening in the business world and the economy. It is much easier to simply sit for the long term if you are not always FREAKING yourself out with fantasy/emotional thinking.
the "news" of the day. Inflation: Consumer prices rise 8.3% over last year in August, tanking stocks and clinching rate hikes https://finance.yahoo.com/news/august-inflation-data-cpi-september-13-211038620.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Inflation rose more than expected in August even as prices moderated from four-decade highs reached earlier this year. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in August reflected an 8.3% increase over last year and a 0.1% increase over the prior month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. Economists had expected prices to rise 8.1% over last year and fall 0.1% over last month, according to estimates from Bloomberg. On a "core" basis, which strips out the volatile food and energy components of the report, prices rose 6.3% over last year and 0.6% over the prior month in August. Expectations were for a 6.1% annual increase and 0.3% monthly increase in core CPI. The unexpected rise in Tuesday's headline figure came despite a 5% drop in energy prices over the month, driven by 10.6% plunge in the gasoline index. Inflationary pressures remained strong across other components of the report, with declining gas and energy prices offset by increases in the costs of shelter, food, and medical care — the largest of many contributors to the broad-based monthly increase, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. August's CPI report sent stocks tumbling. Shortly after the release, Nasdaq futures were down as much as 1.8%, S&P 500 futures sank 1.2%, and Dow futures fell 0.9% The reading also likely affirms that Federal Reserve officials will raise interest rates by 75 basis points at their policy-setting meeting Sept. 20-21. “Today’s inflation data cements a third consecutive 0.75% increase in the Fed funds rate next week," Principal Global Investors Chief Global Strategist Seema Shah said in a note. "Headline inflation has peaked but, in a clear sign that the need to continue hiking rates is undiminished, core CPI is once again on the rise, confirming the very sticky nature of the US inflation problem," Shah added, pointing out that 70% of the CPI basket logged an annual price rise of more than 4% month-on-month. "Until the Fed can tame that beast, there is simply no room for a discussion on pivots or pauses," Shah said. The higher-than-expected inflation print also comes after a round of more aggressive talk from central bank officials, notably Vice Chair Lael Brainard, who said last week: "While the moderation in monthly inflation is welcome, it will be necessary to see several months of low monthly inflation readings to be confident that inflation is moving back down to 2 percent." “Monetary policy will need to be restrictive for some time to provide confidence that inflation is moving down to target,” Brainard added, “We are in this for as long as it takes to get inflation down. Among individual components of the report, the food index increased 0.8% in August, the smallest monthly increase since December 2021. Meanwhile, the food at home index rose 0.7% during the month, with all six major grocery store food group indexes rising. Housing prices continued their climb, with the cost of shelter recording its largest increase month-on-month increase — 0.7% — since January 1991. Over the last year, the shelter index jumped 6.2%, accounting for roughly 40% of the broader index increase in all items excluding food and energy. The cost of medical care notably rose 0.7% in August after a 0.4% increase in July, with major medical care component indexes climbing across the board." MY COMMENT NO.....I really dont care about any of the above. What do I care about.....the upcoming EARNINGS for the companies that I own. If you want to look for good news in the above.....well......headline inflation has probably peaked and we are not getting worse. We are siting where we were....STABLE.....as we watch the FED flail around doing their rate increases that are having NO IMPACT.
