The Long Term Investor

Simply ridiculous.....but that is the short term insanity.


Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq drop with Powell speech looming over Fed rate-cut hopes

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...ooming-over-fed-rate-cut-hopes-234122186.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"US stocks slid on Thursday after disappointing Walmart (WMT) earnings and hotter-than-expected jobless claims data, as focus tightened on the Federal Reserve's closely watched gathering at Jackson Hole.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell more than 0.3%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) moved down more than 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also dropped over 0.3%.

A continued slide in Big Tech stocks is still a worry, even after the Nasdaq on Wednesday showed signs of a reprieve, coming firmly off session lows as buyers jumped in. Short sellers have reaped over $5 billion from bets against techs as AI fears rippled through markets.

Dimmed rate-cut hopes are also weighing on minds after minutes from the Fed's July meeting signaled that sticky inflation rather than a faltering labor market is the main concern for policymakers. There was broad support for holding rates steady, despite a growing divide at the Fed. Meanwhile, more policymakers indicated this week that they don't necessarily view a rate cut as imminent.

Amid that rate debate, jobless claims for the week ending Aug. 15 rose to 235,000, versus expectations for 225,000. Continuing claims jumped to 1.97 million, a notch above the 1.96 million anticipated by economists.

Meanwhile, manufacturing activity rose to its highest level in three years in August. S&P Global's flash US composite PMI survey, which captures activity in both the services and manufacturing sectors, increased to 55.4 from 55.1 in July.

Earlier, Walmart (WMT) capped the week's earnings from retail giants, raising its full-year forecast for sales and profit after second quarter results showed a low-price push is drawing in shoppers. But its quarterly profit fell short of high expectations, and its shares slid more than 4%.

The Fed kicks off its Jackson Hole symposium of central bankers from around the world later on Thursday, with the countdown on to Chair Jerome Powell's highly anticipated speech on Friday. The gathering is taking place as President Trump puts public pressure on the Fed, most recently calling for Fed Governor Lisa Cook to resign. Cook has said she won't be "bullied to step down"."

MY COMMENT

YES....at this time I have ZERO expectation of a September FED rate cut. After that they only meet two more times......October and December. So if we pass September with NOTHING......I am expecting NOTHING for the year. Classic FED politics on review for the world to see.

WHATEVER.

 

Herd behavior? People that have gotten some LEAKED word about NVDA earnings? Or....?

Wall Street Races to Lift Nvidia Price Targets Ahead of Earnings

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall..._ZpgayLm0O7keRbuvCY7W7301sfwsUkMALmerPsuyQrQh

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"(Bloomberg) — A slew of Wall Street analysts covering Nvidia Corp. are boosting their expectations for the chipmaker’s stock ahead of its quarterly earnings release due Aug. 27.

At least nine analysts have lifted their 12-month price targets on the company this week alone, raising the average price by 3% to nearly $194, the highest on record. The level implies more than 10% upside from where shares traded at Wednesday’s close, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“What you’re seeing is the recognition that growth at Nvidia is rock solid,” said Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management. “Analysts are raising projections because they simply need to; the stock is not going to slow down.”

The boosted expectations come amid a selloff in megacap technology companies — Nvidia included — that’s pulled the S&P 500 Index from record highs. Investors are looking to take profits and reallocate to less-risky sectors of the market after several major tech stocks reached sky-high valuations. Rising doubts that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September have fueled the rout ahead of Chair Jerome Powell’s Friday speech.



Nvidia’s shares traded lower intraday Thursday for the third consecutive day, but remain up about 30% from the company’s last earnings release at the end of May. In the roughly 70% rally from the April tariff-tantrum selloff, Nvidia has contributed more than 180 points to the S&P 500’s gain, more than any other member.


Given the stock’s weight in the S&P 500 Index — it’s the largest constituent — and its importance in the artificial intelligence trade, Nvidia has long endured incredibly lofty expectations from Wall Street analysts and investors alike. So far, the earnings season has signaled positive read-throughs for the chipmaker’s quarterly results as megacap technology companies including Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. increased pledges for billions of dollars in capital expenditures. Nvidia, which derives some 40% of revenue from those four companies, is likely a main beneficiary.

Analysts expect the company to report yet another quarter of double-digit revenue growth next week. While questions still remain around Nvidia’s ability to sell in China, any update should lead to upside.

“China is already de-risked in Street models, and the goal here is to get China to build on NVDA’s platform,” Cantor Fitzgerald analysts led by CJ Muse wrote in an Aug. 18 note lifting their price target to $240 from $200. “Any progress here should be well-received.”



Other firms boosting Nvidia price targets this week include Wedbush, KeyBanc, UBS, Morgan Stanely and Susquehanna. Nearly 90% of analysts covering Nvidia give its shares a buy-equivalent rating, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Of course, sky-high expectations mean any miss on Nvidia’s part could spark a selloff that would move the entire market.

“It could have a very outsized impact if there were some type of a disappointment,” Mulberry said. “It’s just the likelihood of them disappointing expectations is very low.”"

MY COMMENT

Seems weird.....that a large number of analysts are moving this stock price UP.

I guess kind of a no-lose move....if earnings are great....they look like real "experts".

If somehow earnings disappoint......these now sky high expectations will be dashed......and the drop will be larger than it would have been otherwise. Good news for the short attackers.

Either way traditional Wall Street trading houses can win.....on the long side or on the short side.

The real question....does any little retail investor pay any attention to these people? I doubt it.

 

I like this little article.

Stop Quoting Broad Market Declines in ‘Trillions of Dollars’
Big numbers always need context and scale

https://www.fisherinvestments.com/e...broad-market-declines-in-trillions-of-dollars

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"As the US stock market has grown, we have noticed a weird trend growing in popularity. Where before headlines hyped moves in Dow Jones Industrial Average points, they are now dwelling on dollars. Big numbers of dollars. This week, we have seen ample talk of the S&P 500 “losing” $1 trillion in the currently four-day-old pullback. After Liberation Day, headlines sweated its $9.6 trillion “loss” since Inauguration Day. The largest companies get the same treatment, too, a perpetual preoccupation with how many dollars volatility adds to or knocks off their market cap. We think it risks leading investors to a very bad place.

When headlines describe volatility with eye-popping dollar amounts, they make the same mistake they did with focusing on Dow points: using big numbers without context. It is designed to make you click, and it can easily instill fear. $1 trillion seems like a lot of money to “erase” in four days! No human on earth has ever had that much, let alone lost that much.

But the stock market isn’t a person, so considering that drop from a human perspective won’t help. The real question: Is $1 trillion actually a lot in the grand scheme of things? To know, you have to scale. Meaning, you must find a proper reference point and assess whether $1 trillion is big or small relative to it. For the S&P 500, the correct reference point is its most recent all-time-high market capitalization.

That would be its free float-adjusted market cap on August 14. Which was … just under $54.83 trillion. $1 trillion is just 1.8% of this. And even this overstates the move, because the S&P 500’s float-adjusted market cap hasn’t even dropped $1 trillion in the last four days. The index’s actual drop between August 14’s high and August 20’s close is -1.1% in price terms.[ii] Over four days. As down stretches go, this one is mild to this point.

Look, we get it, the headline writers are doing their job: jolting would-be readers into clicking. That is showbiz for you. The problems come when the same emotional response that makes people click tempts them to act. It is very easy to see these headlines, feel the wind taken out of your sails, and think you must do something, anything, to stop similarly massive sums of money bleeding out of your portfolio. But reacting to these emotions rarely proves beneficial—and success is generally a matter of luck.

Going back to that purported -$9.6 trillion S&P 500 “loss” between Inauguration Day and April 6, that is bigger than the combined GDP of Germany and Japan, the world’s third- and fourth-largest economies based on World Bank figures.[iii] That. Sounds. Big.

But at the time, the S&P 500 was down -15.1% in total return terms since Inauguration Day and -17.3% since its February 19 high, both firmly in correction territory.[iv] Both are consistent with a sharp, fleeting, sentiment-induced -10% to -20% decline, not a deeper, grueling, longer bear market of -20% or worse. Corrections tend to be steep and painful but fast, over before you know it, with a quick rebound to new highs.

When you view a market decline in percentage terms, it can nudge your brain to think through these things and make a more reasoned decision. That would have been correct, considering stocks started rebounding April 9 and were back at all-time highs by June’s end. But talk of a -$9.6 trillion “loss” may trigger the fight-or-flight instinct more often, leading to counterproductive, panic-induced moves.

For all the talk of multitrillion dollar “losses,” another key point gets, well, lost in the shuffle: A market decline isn’t actually a loss unless you sell. A correction might temporarily “erase” market value, but a recovery later can then “erase” the decline.” Which un-erases the erased value.

Similarly, a company doesn’t record a loss when its market value falls. A “loss” is only when it actually loses money because costs exceeded revenues. That big company whose name rhymes with FennSidia didn’t “lose” over a hundred billion dollars when its market cap declined that much in three trading days through Tuesday’s close. Its stock price just endured a mild decline. The kind of decline many companies have endured over three days many times over. Normal volatility. The kind where you shrug and say, “Must be Tuesday.” (Or Wednesday. Or whatever business day that ends in “y.”)

So we urge you, friends: Keep perspective. When you see market volatility portrayed in trillions of dollars being lost or erased, understand you are getting into clickbait territory. Nothing about those headline portrayals yields anything helpful to you in making a sound investment decision or rationally assessing the landscape. That requires context and scale. Slow down. Do the math. Scale. Zoom out. Add perspective. Question narratives. All the things we try to bring you regularly."

MY COMMENT

I have no doubt it will be the.....MEDIA......that will ultimately, in the future, destroy the market system that has brings wealth and funds our current retirement system for those that do not work in government.

 

OMG....it is FED day. RUN.......RUN for your life.

 

Meaningless blather......but......it is not like anyone is basing their investing decisions of this BS anyway.

Powell signals Fed may cut rates soon even as inflation risks remain

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/powell-signals-fed-may-cut-140332584.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door ever so slightly to lowering a key interest rate in the coming months but gave no hint on the timing of a move and suggested the central bank will proceed cautiously as it continues to evaluate the impact of tariffs and other policies on the economy.

In a high-profile speech that will be closely watched at the White House and on Wall Street, Powell said that there are risks of both rising unemployment and stubbornly higher inflation. That puts the Fed in a tough spot, because it would typically cut its short-term rate to boost hiring, while keeping it high — or raising it — to fight inflation.

“The stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance,” Powell said in prepared remarks. That suggests the Fed will continue to evaluate jobs and inflation data as it decides whether to cut rates, including at its next meeting Sept. 16-17.

“Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” he added, a more direct sign that Powell is considering a rate cut than he has made in previous comments.

Still, Powell’s remarks suggest the Fed will still proceed carefully in the coming months and will make its rate decisions based on how inflation and unemployment evolve in the coming months. That may frustrate financial markets, which have hoped for clearer signals of the Fed’s next moves, and President Donald Trump, who has castigated Powell for not lowering rates sooner.

Powell spoke at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a conference with about 100 academics, economists, and central bank officials from around the world.

Powell spoke as markets largely expect a rate cut in September, according to futures pricing, though those odds have slipped this week. Trump has repeatedly called for rate cuts, arguing there is “no inflation” and saying that a cut would lower the government’s interest payments on its $37 trillion in debt.

Trump and his allies have ramped up attacks on the Fed, including this week by calling on a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, to resign, after a Trump official alleged she may have committed mortgage fraud."

MY COMMENT

Rather than doing anything based on Powell or the FED I would recommend that investors simply use of a......MAGIC EIGHT BALL.......as the basis for their investing decisions.

 

Headcount freeze? Yeah right. At this rate AAPL will not have any AI employees.

Meta Hires Another Apple AI Leader Amid Headcount Freeze, Report Says

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-hires-another-apple-ai-134931769.html

 

Looks like the big averages are having a good GREEN day thanks to hearing what they wanted to hear from POWELL. WHATEVER.

BUT.....I will take any short term gains I can get......regardless of "why".

 

The recent SHORT ATTACK on PLTR, AI, and BIG TECH was really well done. I have no knowledge of......behind the scenes. I am sure..... if all the details were known.....it was an EPIC event in terms of the strategy, media coordination, and how it was run and framed.

BUT.....in the end....it is all simply a little short term event. In a long term chart of the SP500 it will not even be a little dot. It will all be long forgotten in just a few months.

The ONLY investors that will remember it will be those that ran out and made some short term move in response. BUMMER......for them.

 

I am not seeing as big of a bump as I would expect today with the green in the big averages. BUT....at least....I only have a single REED stock right now....COST.

I dont have much confidence in this open today.....however.

 

YEAH.....remember all the fear-mongering of 2-4 months ago?

But in classic style......they just could not resist adding that little....."yet".....onto the end of the headline.

I assume there is some headline and article STYLE BOOK out there somewhere that MANDATES that any talk about tariffs and their LACK OF IMPACT......mandates the use of the word......"yet".

Tariffs aren’t dealing a huge blow to big retailers and consumers — yet. Here are key earnings takeaways

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/retail-earnings-walmart-target-home-depot-discuss-tariffs.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Key Points

• Consumer spending has largely stayed strong so far and the pinch from higher duties hasn’t been as severe as some companies had feared.
• Scot Ciccarelli, a retail analyst for Truist, said retailers are raising prices “but not nearly to the degree that might have been expected in early April.”
• Yet Walmart said it’s seen price sensivity with some lower-income shoppers and Crocs reduced orders for the back half of the year.

As some of the biggest names in retail, including Walmart and Home Depot, delivered earnings results in recent weeks, they updated Wall Street on how they and their shoppers are responding to President Donald Trump’s wave of tariff increases.

The takeaway?

Tariff costs are rising for retailers, and they’ve had to get creative to avoid widespread price hikes.

Yet consumer spending has largely stayed strong so far — and the pinch from higher duties hasn’t been as severe as some companies had feared. Compared to the spring, retail executives struck a measured tone and said they don’t expect their costs, or customers’ prices, to jump dramatically.

Walmart had given one of the strongest warnings in May, as CFO John David Rainey said he expected some prices to rise during the summer.In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, however, Rainey said the nation’s biggest retailer has raised prices on some items, but in other parts of its stores has kept prices down or expanded discounts.

“There are certainly areas where we have fully absorbed the impact of higher tariff costs,” he said. “There are other areas where we’ve had to pass some of those costs along. But when you look across the basket of items, we’re certainly trying to keep prices as low as we can.”

Scot Ciccarelli, a retail analyst for Truist, said retailers are raising prices “but not nearly to the degree that might have been expected in early April” when Trump first announced his steep tariffs on dozens of countries.

“Most of the companies are kind of downplaying the impact of tariffs,” he said. “They’ve all talked about substantial mitigation efforts, whether that is diversifying sourcing, whether that is pushing price back to vendors.”

Here are three takeaways from a busy couple weeks of retail earnings.

Consumer spending is steady — with some exceptions

The drumbeat of steady, but selective, U.S. consumer spending continued this quarter.

At Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer by revenue, sales of private label items, which tend to cost less than national name brands, were roughly flat, Rainey told CNBC. When customers trade down to those cheaper brands or smaller packs of items, it can signal U.S. households feel strapped for cash.

“Everyone is looking to see if there are any creaks in the armor or anything that’s happening with the consumer, but it’s been very consistent,” Rainey told CNBC. “They continue to be very resilient.”

Walmart and Coach parent company Tapestry both raised their sales outlooks for the full year. Both companies said they saw healthy sales of discretionary items, such as clothing and handbags.

Sales of fashion items, including ladies’ apparel and shoes, accelerated at Walmart in the quarter, Rainey said. One of Coach’s handbags, the large Kisslock bag that costs $695, sold out within minutes of launching in July, Tapestry CEO Joanne Crevoiserat said last week on the company’s earnings call.

Yet some categories are still a tough sell. And lower-income shoppers have been more sensitive to price changes.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said Thursday that the effect of tariffs on spending “has been somewhat muted.” Still, he added some shoppers have noticed and responded when prices creep up.

“As we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we’ve continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters,” he said. “Not surprisingly, we see more adjustments in middle- and lower-income households than we do with higher-income households and discretionary categories where item prices have gone up.”

Sales at Home Depot and Lowe’s improved as the quarter went on, with the strongest in July. Still, the companies weren’t ready to predict a turnaround for home improvement.

Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison attributed some of the recent pickup in demand to better weather and said “it’s too early for us to call that a trend.” Higher mortgage rates and borrowing costs have dinged homeowners’ willingness to tackle a major renovation or move to a new home, which tends to spur home projects.

Other brands had more dire warnings about spending. On the company’s earnings call, Crocs CEO Andrew Rees described the backdrop for the second half of the year as “concerning” and said its retail orders are weak.

He described Crocs’ customer as “super cautious.”

“They’re not purchasing. They’re not even going to the stores, and we see traffic down,” he said, adding that’s also true at its outlets, which draw more lower-income households.

Retailers have blunted the effects of tariffs ... so far

Retailers have jumped into action to try to minimize cost increases from tariffs or avoid them altogether.

Those tactics have included importing goods from a wider range of countries, getting items to the U.S. early and stocking up on high-frequency purchases or fresh merchandise that consumers are more likely to buy, even at higher prices, according to interviews of retail executives and earnings calls.

Yet as Walmart showed, retailers have been strategic about price increases — to not only avoid spooking customers, but also to dodge potential scrutiny from the White House. Trump criticized Walmart in May after the company warned it would have to raise prices.

Sharkninja, which makes a wide range of items including blenders and hairstyling tools, has “increased sell price on products, but done it very, very carefully,” CEO Mark Barrocas said in an interview. And in some cases, it had to roll back part of those price increases, he said.

The company has also reduced discounting and raised the price of new merchandise when it debuts. For example, Sharkninja initially planned to launcha new infrared skin care mask called CryoGlow at $299, but instead decided to price it at $349, he said.

For Walmart, Target and Tapestry-owned Coach, importing goods early and having merchandise in warehouses before tariffs took effect have helped them curb the hit from higher rates.

Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail told CNBC most of the imported products the company sold during the quarter landed ahead of tariffs. And Home Depot is taking more steps to blunt the effects: more than half of what the company sells comes from the U.S. and it aims to import no more than 10% from any single country by the end of the year.

Yet the tariff bill is still adding up. Walmart’s McMillion said he expects higher costs from duties to continue through the second half of the fiscal year. Other companies also provided specific estimates of how much the higher duties will cost them.

Even as Tapestry posted sales growth, its shares tumbled last week after it said costs from higher duties would total $160 million this upcoming fiscal year and ding profits.

While Trump’s tariff policy appears more settled than in the spring, tariffs on some countries could still rise.

Many of Trump’s tariffs on countries began in early August, but one of the key rates still hangs in the balance. He delayed higher tariffs on China for 90 days last week. Those had jumped as high as 145%, but are now at 30% as negotiations continue.

Target acknowledged the trade uncertainty with its own strategy. It gave a wider than usual range for its full-year earnings per share outlook.

Strong brands, new moneymakers matter more than ever

Strong brand loyalty and lucrative new businesses have made it easier for some companies to weather the uncertainty.

As homeowners postpone larger projects, Home Depot and Lowe’s have bulked up their business among home professionals to attract steadier traffic and prepare for when demand picks up again. Along with reporting earnings this week, Lowe’s announced it’s buying Foundation Building Materials for $8.8 billion. It marked its second acquisition of a home professional-focused company in recent months.

Home Depot announced its own pro-focused deal earlier this summer and made the largest acquisition in its history when it bought SRS Distribution last year.

Walmart also has benefited from newer revenue streams, especially its advertising business and third-party marketplace. Global advertising grew 46% in the most recent quarter, including ad-enabled smart TV maker Vizio, which it acquired last year.

Its marketplace revenue grew by 17% year over year. That business includes sellers who get charged a commission and often pay for services, such as ads on Walmart’s site to promote their products or fulfillment services to have the big-box retailer store, pack and ship orders to customers.

Those “more diversified set of profit streams,” which have higher margins than selling a gallon of milk or a T-shirt, make Walmart’s earnings steadier even as the company faces profit pressures, Rainey said on the company’s earnings call.

“We are more than just a standard brick-and-mortar retail business,” he said on the call.

For some brands, customer demand is high enough to help offset tariffs or allow them to charge more.

Sandal maker Birkenstock, for instance, “saw no pushback or cancellations” after its tariff-related July 1 price increases, CEO Oliver Reichert said on the company’s earnings call.

Coach, which has driven up its average price of items over the past five years and reduced its level of markdowns, can better “absorb a lot of these input costs,” Coach CEO Todd Kahn told CNBC.

On the flip side, tariff costs have hit some brands harder, especially if they don’t have the new products customers seem to want or are skittish about what sales will look like later this year. High-performing companies with massive scale like Walmart often have leverage with vendors to pass on costs — but other businesses might not.

“If you’re a struggling brand, or you’re not really growing your business with a vendor, that vendor has less incentive to absorb incremental costs, whether it’s from tariffs or supply chain or whatever,” Truist’s Ciccarelli said.

Target said its profit margins in the quarter were hurt by the costs of cancelling orders. Crocs also said it is reducing orders for the back half of the year.

Crocs took another usual step: Rees said the company is taking back older inventory from retailers that sell its Heydude shoe brand and swapping it out with fresher styles."

MY COMMENT

Imported goods that are subject to tariffs make up a TINY bit of our economy. In the end business for the most part is..... NOT..... being stupid. Good management has no problem dealing with the current environment.

At the same time companies that have JOKE or INCOMPETENT management like....TARGET.....will use tariffs as an excuse for their incompetence and foolish strategies that pissed off half their customers.

I have seen nothing that gives me any concern about consumers. What will kill some businesses is management incompetence and in select cases......price gouging. A good example is all the stories I see today about poor Las Vegas...seeing a big drop in visitors......in reality....they have simply price gouged people into staying away....over many years..

Some leaders just do not understand the concept of.......demand destruction.......and....market share.

 

WOW....here we are a little over one hour in and the market rally continues to grow.

My earlier gain for the day has now doubled. BUT.....good old COST.....is still my only stock in the red. As usual.....SPLIT THE STOCK. A share price of $1000.....is NOT attractive....regardless of the ICONIC nature and performance of the company.

 

Same as earlier....but....my gains have definately increased for the day.

A good example of how much of a DRAG....the FED BS is on the markets short term.....especially in the middle of a slow and low volume time like August.

 

It is not looking good for my art auction that is coming up. the painting that I am interested in has already hit a high number in the early bidding. it is not up to my MAX yet but is close. So I am expecting to get quickly out-bid in the live bidding.

BUT....hope springs eternal.

i guess that is the fun of auctions....the anticipation.

 

The key for ALL the current tech companies to retain relevance and their edge is.....CONSTANT INNOVATION. Lose that innovative and entrepreneurial edge and you are......INTEL.....or.....IBM. Get smug and complacent about your market and your customers and you are.....TOAST.

Nvidia's latest tech will let companies turn data centers into one massive GPU

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvid...NjkhKeeD921JNsfT7Iwaj_I5aN1VhcSltGk41SkL6KN6I

MY COMMENT

The headline is a bit of an exaggeration....but the content and the concept is right on. These sorts of aspirational products and concepts are very important to any big tech company to stay relevant and dominant. Some of them work out, some dont. That is just how the process works.

How do you know when to sell a stock.....especially a big tech company......when the company becomes complacent and stops innovating and being entrepreneurial. When that EDGE is no longer there. When the company becomes willing to turn things over to the bean-counters......and just ride along.

This is why it is GOLDEN for these companies to use that big cash hoard that they all have to acquire, acquire, acquire. Often it is not the company that is being targeted for acquisition but the talent. Buying back shares.....worthless. It is all about staying on the cutting edge of talent that is out there in the market place. There is a big reason that META is spending massive sums of money right now for talent.

This is why I LOVE companies with FOUNDER management. They tend to have that emotional and entrepreneurial edge.

The death-knell for any company......when they hire the glad-handing, celebrity, professional, CEO.

 

YES....moving on.

Canada drops many of its retaliatory tariffs on the U.S.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/canada-retaliatory-tariffs-trump-autos-steel.html

"Key Points

• Canada announced Friday it was dropping most of its counter-tariffs of 25% on U.S. goods.
• The tariffs on U.S. autos, steel and aluminum will remain in place for now.
• The move comes as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement is scheduled for a review in the next few months."

 

This morning I added some shares of COST in a couple of the accounts that I manage.

Behind AMZN....I see COST as the best retail/merchant stock available.....especially at the current price.

SPLIT THE STOCK.

 

That's for sure.

Optimizing Ourselves to Death

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/optimizing-ourselves-to-death/

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Optimization culture has gone too far. What started as a movement to save time or improve health has morphed into a never-ending quest to maximize everything. We track our sleep. We count our steps. We chase credit card rewards. We obsess over our allocations. And much more.

While improving yourself is a noble goal, the pursuit of perfection has created a culture of anxiety and neuroticism that has done more harm than good. For example, David Sinclair, a popular longevity researcher, recently tweeted:

Broke a rule by eating a snack bar before bed. It completely messed up my glucose & I woke up feeling ill. Won’t do that again

If a “snack bar before bed” can send your entire system into disarray, how good is your health really?

And it’s not just health where this obsession shows up either. Tim Ferriss, one of the most influential optimizers in the world, recently warned about the perils of over-valuing your time:

Learning to value your time is a valuable skill that allows you to learn, especially in the early stages, what makes sense to delegate and what does not…However, if you land on some type of number, whether it’s ill-defined or very precisely defined, for what your time is worth per hour, you can end up feeling the agony of wasting time anytime a minute is sacrificed doing something that you don’t think is high leverage. And that ends up being a very painful way to go through life.

Ferriss’s warning captures the essence of what went wrong with optimization. What started as a way to “work smarter” or “live healthier” transformed into a culture obsessed with productivity, efficiency, and perfection.

But where did this start? And, more importantly, how will it end?

When Did Optimization Become so Popular?

If I had to trace optimization culture back to its roots, it would be with the publication of The Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith. In it, Smith demonstrates how dividing labor into specialized tasks could dramatically increase productivity. Smith describes a pin factory where one worker might only be able to make a few pins per day when doing every task themselves. However, by splitting the production process into distinct, repetitive steps, a factory could easily make thousands of pins per day.

This ideology became the bedrock of capitalism and helped fuel the mass production that followed during the Industrial Revolution.

But at some point, this way of thinking started to pervade every other part of society. What was a useful ideology in a business setting slowly found its way into our lives.

I don’t know exactly where the modern version of this began, but I first noticed it with Steve Jobs wearing the exact same outfit every day. Jobs argued that wearing his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans reduced his daily decision fatigue so that he could focus his mental energy on more important decisions.

As Jobs (and his clothing choices) became more popular, productivity culture was also on the rise. Books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Getting Things Done, and, eventually The 4-Hour Workweek, all championed ways of getting more done in less time. It turned something you should get enjoyment from—your work—into something you should do as quickly as possible—a rote task.

But the productivity gurus were child’s play compared to the rise of the biohacking movement that followed. Guys like Andrew Huberman and Bryan Johnson rose to fame in recent years with their strict diets, excessive supplementation, and elaborate morning routines. Science-backed exercise and nutrition advice became the name of the game. And there was no shortage of influencers to supply it.

I know because I was one of the people who got sucked into this movement. I was following Bryan Johnson, Rhonda Patrick, Peter Attia, and others as biohacking became ever more popular. I counted calories. I owned an Oura ring. I was taking 9 different supplements a day (and was constantly experimenting with new ones). At one point, I even had a Korean skin care routine.

But it all came crashing down. One day I saw this video from Paul Saladino about all the chemicals that are on paper receipts and why you shouldn’t touch them. The next day I found myself using my shirt to grab a receipt at the grocery store and it hit me.

“What the hell am I doing?”

I’ll admit that the studies on paper receipts don’t look good. Paper receipts have harmful chemicals on them that can cause problems if ingested. But unless you touch these receipts all day (for a job) or you don’t wash your hands before eating, there’s just no way they will have any material impact on your life.

I was spending mental energy on something that was trivial to my existence. And if I was doing this with paper receipts, where else was I doing it?

This is how my optimization journey came to an end and how many others’ will as well.

The End of Optimization

How does the optimization movement end? When more people collectively realize that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. When they conclude that the Pareto principle was right all along: get the big stuff right, and you don’t have to worry about the small stuff.

I’m already starting to see the shift in sentiment. The comments on that David Sinclair tweet (from earlier) ripped him to shreds for his lack of metabolic resilience. And, as pushback increases, even Bryan Johnson has started testing the waters on reducing the intensity of his messaging:

guys I went to bed late last night and everything is fine this morning. maybe i’ve taken this longevity thing too far?

I don’t know where this all ends, but we are going to see more messages like this in the coming months and years. As more people begin to question the data and how to interpret it, optimization culture will fade away.

For example, David Perell recently wrote about the usefulness of alcohol consumption (in moderation) even as drinking in the U.S. reaches all-time lows:

We’ve all seen the Huberman data about how destructive alcohol can be for your health. Most people respond by saying: “Ok, that means I’ll drink less.” But there’s another way to interpret the data. If alcohol has persisted for so long and across cultures, despite the obvious downsides, then there must be serious benefits as well. Alcohol is as Lindy as Lindy can be.

Perell highlights the fatal flaw of optimization—what’s it all for? What’s the point of better health if you have no one to spend it with? What’s the point of being sexy if you aren’t having sex? What’s the point of living forever if you have nothing to live for?

We need a push toward “unoptimization” as Tim Denning calls it, to solve this. Because we aren’t machines. We aren’t pins in a pin factory. We are people.

And people don’t need optimization. If you’re a manufacturer trying to make millions of products or a search engine trying to answer billions of queries, you need optimization. But if you’re an individual trying to live a good life, you don’t.

What you need is purpose, fulfillment, and connection. Yes, you also need good health, a good career, and good prioritization of your time. But these pursuits shouldn’t consume your every waking hour.

Trust me, I’ve been there. I used to be obsessed with my asset allocation in my early 20s (when it didn’t matter much). I’ve changed my diet more times than I can count. I’ve read countless productivity books.

There was some value in all of this, but the pursuit of perfection was ultimately a dead end. I had to reach that end to learn a bigger lesson—it’s okay to be inefficient. It’s okay to take the scenic route in life. Because the end of optimization is the beginning of living again."

MY COMMENT

AMEN...a thousand times over. I try to ONLY focus on the big picture. That is my entrepreneurial nature anyway......BIG PICTURE ALL THE WAY.

As a business owner I did not worry about detail and micromanaging everything...it was NOT productive. If I got a tax notice that I owed another $220......I just paid it. It was not worth my time to fight or squabble over $220.......even if I knew i was right.

OBSESSING over every little irrelevant bit of health info or business info or data is a big waste of time. The trick is knowing what to obsess over and what to ignore.

I see a lot of this "STUFF" with people that rely on tech for every single and every aspect of their lives. I swear that there is a lot of "stuff" that I can do the old way a lot quicker and more accurately than all the tech addicts can. A lot of it is just form over function. Just.....BUSY WORK. Virtue signaling....look at me....look at me.

 

I am NOT a fan of this.

I think this company is beyond saving. BUT...I also understand the thinking of trying to have at least some modest amount of chip manufacturing ability in the USA.

Now...... if this is a way to convert Intel's funding from the Biden-era CHIPS Act into equity aimed at stabilizing the company's US manufacturing business.....with little to no new money....ok, a little better.....at least we are not just throwing money down a rat-hole in the form of grants. We are actually getting something for all that money.

But I still dont like seeing government take ownership in failing companies....or for that matter.....any company.

Trump says US will take 10% stake in Intel

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-us-will-take-10-stake-in-intel-180452265.html