BEWARE. A BIG warning here in this little article. Dont be a victim. Quishing’ scams dupe millions of Americans as cybercriminals turn the QR code bad https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/27/cybersecurity-scams-quishing-qr-code-consumer-risks-hackers.html "Key Points Almost three-quarters of Americans (73%) scan QR codes without verification, and more than 26 million have already been directed to malicious sites, according to NordVPN. The FTC warned earlier this year about scanning QR codes on unexpected packages. New York City’s Department of Transportation issued a warning that scammers are posting QR codes on parking meters that are not legitimate payment link. MY COMMENT Imagine all the places you might scan a QR code to pay for something. I used one just a few days ago to pay for parking in a downtown lot. What a huge issue and a .....huge financial danger.
Ok....I had a good medium gain today....compliments of.....WMT, NVDA, HD, AMZN and AAPL. I also beat the SP500 today by....0.76%. Moving on....closer to my three earnings.......MSFT, AAPL, and AMZN.......on Wednesday and Thursday.
Nothing too exciting going on today. I start the day mixed......five stocks up and four down. But I have a nice gain so far.
With all these charts you can probably find support for anything you want. Pure......hindsight and no guarantee to mean anything going forward......but some are interesting......and.....people love charts. 35 charts tell the story of markets and the economy midway through 2025 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yaho...NjkhKeeD921JNsfT7Iwaj_I5aN1VhcSltGk41SkL6KN6I
HERE is the market today. S&P 500, Nasdaq rise as earnings flood in, jobs data on deck https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...ngs-flood-in-jobs-data-on-deck-233720943.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "US stocks moved higher on Tuesday, eyeing a bid for more records as investors combed through a fresh rush of corporate earnings and waited for key economic data in a big week on Wall Street. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2% on the heels of narrowly notching a sixth all-time closing high in a row, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the way higher with a 0.4% gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was roughly flat. The mood is modestly upbeat as a blockbuster week for markets gets into full swing. The Federal Reserve kicks off its two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, while the JOLTS job openings update for June due later ushers in a series of crucial labor data culminating in Friday's nonfarm payrolls report. Meanwhile, earnings take center stage as before-the-bell reports from Spotify (SPOT), Merck (MRK), and UnitedHealth (UNH) disappointed Wall Street. Some news were better than others: Boeing (BA) shares lifted as the world's largest planemaker's quarterly results topped expectations. After the bell Tuesday, Starbucks (SBUX) earnings will be scrutinized for signs of turnaround progress and of the impact of tariffs. The wave of earnings Tuesday will help set the tone for this week's highlights: results from tech giants Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta (META). Also looming large is President Trump's deadline Friday for trading partners to strike deals or face blanket tariff rates. The Commerce Department's Census Bureau on Tuesday reported a sharp decline in the US goods trade deficit in June as businesses looked to get ahead of tariffs. Hopes for an extension to the US-China trade truce are buoying the likes of AI chipmaker Nvidia's (NVDA) stock. Trade war fears may have lost their grip on markets, given the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) only barely managed new records on Monday despite a new US-EU trade deal. On Tuesday's economic docket, Conference Board's July reading on consumer confidence and a S&P CoreLogic print on home prices in May provide a health check on the economy ahead of an update on second quarter GDP later this week," MY COMMENT The above sounds like a bit going on today....but....really nothing much at all. Just another typical single day that will not even be visible on a longer term chart. The good news.....i dont see any reason for the markets to be down today. Looks like a good PROBABILITY today for the recent gains to extend.
MORE....good news for FED cuts....but not till September. Job openings slide in June as hiring rate hits 7-month low https://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-...s-hiring-rate-hits-7-month-low-144639410.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Job openings declined in June while hiring also decreased, according to government data released Tuesday. The report comes as investors closely watch for any signs of slowing in the labor market amid a debate over when the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates again. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 7.44 million jobs open at the end of June, a decrease from the 7.71 million seen the month prior. May's report had shown the highest number of job openings since November 2024. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) also showed that 5.2 million hires were made in June, down from the 5.47 million made during May. The hiring rate ticked lower to 3.3% from the 3.4% seen the month prior and stood at its lowest level since November 2024. In one sign that workers remain cautious about labor market conditions, the quits rate, a sign of confidence among workers, hovered at 2%. Both the hiring and quits rates are hovering near decade lows, reflecting what economists have described as a labor market in "stasis." "The June JOLTS report painted a familiar picture of the labor market: hiring remains quite low, but so do layoffs," Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in a research note following the release. "This will allow the Federal Reserve to keep policy steady as it waits for a clearer picture of how tariffs will impact inflation and growth." While the unemployment rate recently declined to 4.1% from 4.3% in June, Tuesday's JOLTS report falls in line with a wide swath of recent labor market data that has shown signs of cooling in the labor market. ADP data showed private employers unexpectedly cut 33,000 jobs in June. This marked the first month of job losses in the private sector since March 2023. Meanwhile, continuing weekly filings for unemployment benefits have hovered near their highest level in more than three years. Also released on Tuesday, the Conference Board's latest consumer confidence survey showed Americans' labor market outlook continues to soften. Notably, Americans’ appraisal of current job availability weakened for the seventh consecutive month, reaching its lowest point since March 2021. In July, 18.9% of consumers reported that jobs were hard to get, up from 14.5% in January, per the release. Tuesday's data kicks off a busy week of economic data, which will end with the release of the July jobs report on Friday. Economists expect 101,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added to the US economy, with the unemployment rate inching higher to 4.2%, according to data from Bloomberg. In June, the US economy added 144,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 4.1%. MY COMMENT No use even talking about this data....the FED is not going to care.....and neither do I.
The markets just cant stand to go up....with big earnings on the way over the next two days. S&P 500 retreats from record with China trade talks in limbo, Fed decision looming https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/28/stock-market-today-live-updates.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "The S&P 500's losses deepened on Tuesday as progress on trade talks with Beijing stalled and traders braced for the Federal Reserve's rate decision. The broad market index lost 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.3%. Both indexes touched fresh all-time highs earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 227 points, or 0.5%. Selling pressure intensified in the final hour of trading, bringing the S&P 500 to its low for the day. Investors trimmed some bets on risk assets after stocks came roaring back in recent months from their April lows, helped by progress in trade talks between the U.S., Japan and the European Union. Talks with China have been less certain, with U.S. negotiators ending negotiations with their Beijing counterparts on Tuesday, while a potential extension of a pause on higher China tariffs remained up in the air. Negotiators also said that such a reprieve wouldn't be final until President Donald Trump signs off. Traders evaluated some mixed results on Tuesday. Shares of Boeing were lower even after a solid earnings print as the company delivered the most airplanes since 2018. Procter & Gamble stock inched lower despite a better-than-expected full-year revenue forecast and the naming of an insider as CEO. Other corporate results have missed the mark, with shipping giant and consumer bellwether UPSposting an earnings shortfall and not issuing guidance. Whirlpool missed second-quarter analyst estimates and slashed its dividend. This week is a key stretch for corporate earnings, with "Magnificent Seven" names Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon all set to report results on Wednesday and Thursday. As it stands, 199 S&P 500 companies have reported their quarterly results, and nearly 82% have beaten expectations on earnings, according to FactSet data. The looming Federal Reserve interest rate decision on Wednesday also weighed on equities. The central bank is largely expected to keep its benchmark unchanged at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. Investors will also parse a slew of economic data this week, including a reading of gross domestic product and private payroll data due out Wednesday. Wall Street will cap off the data-heavy week with the key July jobs report on Friday. "The market has had a strong run and is now in digestion mode. Some technical indicators suggest a pullback may be coming," said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets. "This is a pause, a period to focus on individual names driven by earnings, while the broader market watches how the Fed's narrative evolves." "Hopefully, we'll get some clarity after Wednesday's press conference," he added. While investors looked past the U.S.-EU trade deal, they will be watching for any other potential deals between the U.S. and other countries, such as China, to be announced by Friday's tariff deadline. Top U.S. and Chinese officials met in Stockholm Monday for another round of trade talks. Tariffs and inflation will remain a focal point throughout the week in other areas as well. July's nonfarm payrolls on Friday will be a key event for traders. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the report to show 100,000 jobs added in July, less than the 147,000 added in June. The unemployment rate is anticipated to rise slightly to 4.2% from 4.1%." MY COMMENT Typical of a big tech earnings week. With over 1/3 of the SP500 having reported earnings.....we are seeing an 82% BEAT rate versus expectations. No one is saying anything but this is a HUGE number on a historic basis.
In spite of five stocks being GREEN.....I still had a small/medium loss today. My winners were.....HD, COST, GOOGL, WMT, and MSFT. I also lost out to the SP500 today by...0.11%. Not much of a day as we move on to important earnings tomorrow and Thursday.
What a long and brutal fall from grace. Poor INTC and anyone that happens to own this stock. I used to own it for many year sin the glory days or the 1990's....so i know how dominant they USED to be. NOW.....I would NEVER buy this stock...even as a turn-around. Intel’s potential exit from advanced manufacturing puts its Oregon future in doubt https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-...acturing-puts-its-oregon-future-in-doubt.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Intel has been the driving force in semiconductor technology for nearly all its 57 years, setting the cadence for advances in computer technology that made the PC ubiquitous and the internet transformative. For the last quarter-century, Intel has done that work at its Ronler Acres research campus in Hillsboro. Its Oregon scientists kept the company on the cutting edge with a succession of breakthroughs in transistor design, semiconductor materials and manufacturing technology. Intel shocked Wall Street last week when the company said it may be done with all that. Staying current on chip technology requires enormous spending — Intel’s capital budget is $18 billion this year — and the company said it isn’t selling enough of its own chips to pay the bills. So if Intel can’t find a big outside client that wants to use Intel’s forthcoming 14A technology for its own chips, due in three or four years, the company said it might just give up. “We face the prospect that it will not be economical to develop and manufacture Intel 14A and successor leading-edge nodes on a go-forward basis,” Intel wrote in a regulatory filing Thursday. “Any decision to pause or discontinue our pursuit of Intel 14A and successor leading-edge process technologies,” it continued, “may be effectively irreversible.” The news shocked and confused Wall Street, not least because Intel made the declaration deep in a securities filing rather than in a press release or analyst call. The company’s stock plunged 9% the next day as investors sorted through the immense ramifications. Intel declined to elaborate this week on Thursday’s filing. However, Intel indicated it will continue designing chips and outsource advanced manufacturing to other chipmakers regardless of the fate of its advanced research. And Intel said it will continue making its chips with older technologies through at least 2030. But the company admitted that shutting down its advanced manufacturing would be a risky strategy that might itself cost billions and leave Intel’s future in the hands of outsiders. Oregon was already reeling as Intel slashed at least 5,400 local jobs over the past 11 months. The notion Intel might also wind down its advanced research puts its entire Oregon future at risk — and along with it, one of the state’s economic pillars. Analysts wonder: What’s Intel’s vision? Intel’s crisis dates back several years, to manufacturing setbacks that cost the company its technological leadership and left its chips years behind the state-of-the-art. That enabled rivals like AMD and ARM Holdings to take market share in PCs and data centers. Meanwhile, Intel failed to develop its own technology to power advanced artificial intelligence. Former CEO Pat Gelsinger planned to spend tens of billions to catch up by building new factories and making new chips, and by opening up Intel’s own factories to make semiconductors for other companies. The Biden administration promised $7.9 billion from the bipartisan CHIPS Act to help Intel along. Intel made progress technologically, but not nearly enough. Annual sales fell by a third, to $53 billion, even as its spending soared. Losses ballooned and the company failed to attract even a single large, outside customer to use its factories. So the board forced out Gelsinger and replaced him in March with a veteran semiconductor executive and former Intel board member, Lip-Bu Tan. Intel was bloated, in Tan’s view, who disclosed plans this month to lay off 15,000 workers around the globe. He shut down a plant in Costa Rica, scrapped plans for factories in Germany and Poland, and delayed a planned Ohio expansion indefinitely. “Unfortunately, the capacity investments we made over the last several years were well ahead of demand and were unwise and excessive,” Tan told investment analysts last week. None of that surprised observers, given Intel’s anemic sales. But when Intel raised the idea Thursday that it might be done with advanced manufacturing, observers were left scratching their heads both by the declaration and the absence of a clear explanation from the company’s leadership. “Intel has two things against it. One is the fact that, a) they’re laying people off; and, b) they don’t really project a positive vision for the company,” said Jim McGregor, a longtime semiconductor industry analyst with Tirias Research. “That’s something that we’re missing from Intel. We need that positive vision from Lip-Bu.” After Intel fired Gelsinger last year, executives floated the idea of breaking up the company. The idea would be to split its chip design business from its manufacturing arm, called Intel Foundry. Some investors had been pushing a breakup for years, predicting the two halves of the company would perform better independently. Others, though, doubted either half could stand on its own. And it was never clear how Intel could finance a breakup. Just two months ago, Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner appeared to rule out a split when he told investors that Tan “isn’t thinking about massive changes.” And earlier this month, Intel promised Oregon would remain “the epicenter of our cutting-edge semiconductor research, technology development, and manufacturing.” Intel undercut both those statements with Thursday’s regulatory filing. Retreat comes with risks “If we are unable to secure a significant external foundry customer for Intel 14A, our next generation semiconductor manufacturing process technology, we may pause or discontinue our pursuit of next generation leading-edge process technologies,” Intel said. Intel may yet succeed in 14A. On Thursday, Tan said it is working with potential customers to custom design its new manufacturing process to suit them. “That gives me a lot of more confidence that this time we have customers engaging early enough in the inception,” Tan said. “Customers are excited.” And surely AMD, Apple, Nvidia and other big chip designers would like to have Intel as a credible alternative to their current contractor, industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Having another option could give chip designers more leverage in pricing and features. Intel says it hopes to begin making chips with its 14A technology in 2028 or 2029. Given the ramp-up time it takes for new manufacturing technologies, Bernstein & Co. analyst Stacy Rasgon estimated that gives Intel no more than 18 months to “land a hero customer on 14A.” If Intel doesn’t find a big client to rescue it, Rasgon said, the company risks being stuck outsourcing its advanced chips while making older, less profitable chips in its own factories. “They might get the worst of both worlds,” Rasgon wrote in a note to investors. Compounding the problem, he said, Intel may scare off potential foundry clients by acknowledging that it may not stay in the foundry business. “We believe the disclosure itself may make it more difficult to attract major customers if they are not convinced of Intel’s commitment,” Rasgon said, “so we hope it is not self-fulfilling.” Intel’s own filing laid out several other issues it will face if it shuts down advanced manufacturing: The company would be entirely dependent on outside manufacturers for advanced chips. It owns more than $100 billion in factories and equipment, whose utility and value would be severely diminished if the plants shut down or shift to making older, less profitable semiconductors. Private investors helped fund factories in Arizona and Ireland and Intel will have to pay them back if it doesn’t hit manufacturing targets. Top employees may leave, and Intel may not be able to fill key positions, if the company isn’t making the most advanced technology. Intel is also waiting on $5.7 billion in pending CHIPS Act subsidies — including $850 million for which it has submitted claims that the Trump administration hasn’t paid. That money was supposed to help fund expansions to Intel’s U.S. factory network, including $1.9 billion in Oregon. President Donald Trump has been slow to deliver on commitments the federal government made during the Biden administration. It’s possible, Rasgon said, that Intel is trying to apply pressure on Trump by raising the possibility that the country could lose the only leading-edge chipmaker based in the United States. “One semi-plausible thesis around this is that it is a cry for help to the administration coupled with a veiled threat,” Rasgon and his colleagues wrote in a note Monday. He said the company might, implicitly, be telling the government: “Help us or we’ll blow it up.” If this is gamesmanship, then Oregon is caught in the middle. “The whole point of the CHIPS Act was to make sure the United States plays a leading-edge role in chips,” said Duncan Wyse, president of the Oregon Business Council. “And it’s hard to see how that can happen if you don’t have a leading-edge node in America, and that would be Ronler Acres.” Intel relies on thousands of researchers and factory technicians at Ronler Acres — now formally known as Gordon Moore Park after the company’s co-founder — to develop each new manufacturing node. It’s the company’s largest and most sophisticated site anywhere in the world, bigger and more advanced than even Intel’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. Intel’s Oregon workforce peaked in 2023, when the company had more than 23,000 people at Ronler Acres and its other campuses in Washington County. It cut 3,000 jobs last year and has laid off at least 2,400 more just this month, bringing Intel’s local headcount to its lowest point in more than a decade. Still, Intel employs more Oregonians than any other business and the chip industry’s average wage — around $180,000 last year — is more than double the average across all professions. Thousands more contractors work to equip, supply and maintain its Hillsboro factories. All of that work appears to be at risk if Intel stops making leading-edge chips. Innovation has always defined Intel, according to McGregor, the Tirias analyst. And he said it’s no less important now than it has been in the past. “I get the whole point that it’s really expensive to do the next process node, especially on your own, but I don’t see how they can be competitive without it,” McGregor said. The semiconductor business is fiercely competitive, but McGregor said each company also builds on its rivals’ successes. And he said no company has contributed more to the industry than Intel." MY COMMENT This old school company looks pretty much.....SCREWED. I would be surprised if they make it. Perhaps they will survive and not end up being broken up into smaller bits and becoming a nothing little company. What a HUGE fall from being the most dominant chip company in the world in the 1990's. A warning to the companies that are chip leaders now.....nothing is a given or a sure thing in the future.
