Tag: stock market

Futures Soar On Optimism For Tariff Deals

After three days of big losses and record-breaking volatility, equity futures are rebounding sharply following somewhat soothing comments from Treasury Secretary Bessent (although how long the relative calm lasts is anyone’s guess, given there’s little clarity about what Trump wants in exchange for cutting tariffs). As of 8:10am, S&P futures are 2.9% higher, a bounce which started around the time we informed readers that Goldman’s head of risk of risk had turned bullish yesterday afternoon; Nasdaq futures are up 2.7%, with all Mag7 names higher with Semis and Cyclicals also outperforming. European and Asian markets are also broadly higher. The VIX is down 10 vols below 40, while Chinese ADRs are mixed. Bond yields have reversed earlier losses and are up 1bp to 4.22% with the USD dropping. Todays’ macro data focus is the Small Business Optimism report which saw sentiment tumble to 97.4 from 100.7 the lowest since the Trump election (Hiring Plans also slumped; these tend to have a lagged but positive correlation to NFP).

In premarket trading, Nvidia is leading the Magnificent Seven higher (Nvidia +4%, Amazon +3.3%, Meta +3%, Tesla +3.0%, Alphabet +2.5%, Apple +1.6%, Microsoft little changed). Health insurance stocks are rallying after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized a 5.06% average increase in payments to Medicare Advantage plans from 2025 to 2026, an increase from its earlier projection (Humana +14%, Alignment Healthcare +10%, CVS +8.8%, UnitedHealth +7.2%, Centene +4.9%). Here are some other notable premarket movers:

  • Agco Corp. (AGCO) rises 2% after Citi upgraded the agricultural equipment company to buy, saying that the company is “favorably positioned given its ~65% exposure to Europe and South America, which we anticipate recovering ahead” of North America.
  • Blackstone (BX) rises 3% after the private equity firm is upgraded to market outperform from market perform at Citizens.
  • Chegg (CHGG) falls 2% as JPMorgan downgrades its rating to underweight, saying the education technology company is facing secular headwinds.
  • CME (CME) rises 2.5% and Charles Schwab (SCHW) gains 3.4% after Morgan Stanley upgrades its ratings across exchange operators and brokers in a hunt for more defensive exposure.
  • El Pollo Loco (LOCO) rises 10% after receiving an unsolicited, non-binding indication of interest from Biglari Capital Corp.
  • Eli Lilly & Co (LLY) climbs 2% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the obesity drugmaker to buy, citing a “compelling entry point into the sector’s premier topline grower” at current levels.
  • Levi Strauss (LEVI) jumps 11% after the apparel retailer maintained its full-year outlook in the face of sweeping new US tariffs that are poised to significantly raise costs for multinational apparel companies.
  • Marvell Technology (MRVL) climbs 4% after Infineon agreed to buy the chip designer’s automotive networking business for $2.5 billion. The deal makes sense given the firm’s strategic focus on artificial intelligence, analysts say.
  • Nu Holdings (NU) rises 4% after JPMorgan upgraded the bank to overweight, saying “even in our more conservative estimates we see Nu growing earnings more than 30% in next 3 years, something hard to find.”
  • Teradata Corp. (TDC) rises 4% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the database management company to overweight, saying “we acknowledge the company remains a model in transition with risk of extending sales cycles,” but at the current valuation, “we believe this is more than priced in.”

Traders are dipping back into risk assets after one of the most brutal selloffs in years, with some taking hints that President Donald Trump might be willing to ease his position on trade terms after Japan pushed ahead with talks. That sent the Nikkei 225 index to a 6% surge. Goldman traders are turning outright bullish anticipating a big bounce in stocks here, with many citing expectations that Trump will cut trade deals.

“The Trump administration is signaling his openness to trade deals,” said Elias Haddad, a strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. “Regardless, the pervasive uncertainty created by continuously changing US tariff threats and the scope of potential retaliatory measures remain a major blow to the global economy. Bottom line: relief rallies in risk assets will likely be short-lived.”

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Tesla Takedown Revolutionaries Prepare Mobilization Nationwide

Far-left revolutionaries behind the “Tesla Takedown” color revolution operation have identified dozens of Tesla targets nationwide and are preparing to mobilize far-left agitators aligned with the Democratic Party to those locations as soon as Saturday, in what the rogue group—reportedly funded by Soros-linked organizations like Indivisible—calls a “Global Day of Action.”

The Tesla Takedown website links to The Action Network—an online platform used by shady far-left NGOs to organize and fundraise—which shows that groups like Troublemakers and the Disruption Project are leading tomorrow’s efforts to “tank Tesla’s stock” and destroy shareholder value

“Stopping Musk will help save lives and our democracy,” Tesla Takedown wrote on its website, adding, “The stakes couldn’t be higher. No one is coming to save us—not politicians, not the media.” 

Tesla Takedown’s claims are baseless and not grounded in fact.

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The Nvidia Story Is A Narrative Scam Attack On US Markets

Simple fact: You must have maximum powered servers, high speed computing (HSC), and superconductor chip production to make AI. Where did this “small China lab” get the chips and power

CNBC reported that perhaps the Chinese lab “found a way to work around the rules, or that the export controls were not the chokehold Washington intended.”

They are referring to ITARs, and with such demand and control on the GPUs, there is absolutely NO WAY. Nvidia or other such tech chip firms had to have facilitated this Chinese effort to produce this AI. PERIOD.

And that is against FEDERAL LAW.

This was an attack on the US Market and the new Trump Administration.

If I were a betting man, I would expect that the Deep State of the US that was just unseated, assisted the CCP to build this AI. It’s the ONLY way China would have been able to put this perfect storm together.

Remember the Wuhan lab and U.S. cooperation to develop a gain-of-function enhanced coronavirus?

Get ready, the truth is going to come out fast.

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The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks even with market participation at a record high

The wealthiest Americans have never owned so much of the stock market, with the top 10% now holding a record 93% of US equities, according to Federal Reserve data.

Americans broadly have been participating in the stock market at a higher rate, with a record 58% of households owning stocks in 2023, according to the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

Still, stock ownership is skewed toward the top: by comparison, the bottom 50% of Americans owned just 1% of all  stocks and mutual fund shares in the third quarter, central bank data shows.

While the pandemic period drove a rise in retail trading as Americans had time on their hands working remotely, as well as cash to put to work from government stimulus checks, it doesn’t seem to have titled ownership much further away from the richest Americans. Some experts have also said that many retail traders cashed out during the brutal bear market of 2022, unable to stomach steep losses. 

In any event, stock market booms have traditionally produced the largest rewards for those who are already wealthy. That’s because the wealthiest US households have most of their assets tied up in equities, while most middle-class families have their assets tied up in housing, researchers said in a 2020 study.

In the third quarter, the bottom 50% of households held $4.8 trillion of real estate assets, but just $0.3 trillion worth in stocks, Fed data shows. 

The top 1%, by comparison, held over $16 trillion in stocks, and just over $6 trillion in real estate assets.

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Grant Cardone Calculates Nancy Pelosi Would Have To Be ‘1500 Years Old’ To Earn Her $120 Million Net Worth On Current Salary

Grant Cardone recently gave his take on Nancy Pelosi’s impressive $120 million net worth during a DJ Vlad interview and as usual, it came with his signature bluntness.

Cardone, a well-known real estate investor, didn’t hold back when he questioned how someone making a public servant’s salary of $179,000 could amass such a fortune. “Can’t do the math on it,” he said, calculating that Pelosi would have to be over 3,300 years old to build up that wealth if she lived solely on her paycheck.

But then he did the actual math using a calculator. After deducting taxes in California, he divided Pelosi’s net worth by her salary and determined she’d have to be 1500 years old to earn $120 million.

Now, Cardone’s tongue-in-cheek comment about Pelosi needing to be “1500 years old if she never spent one penny” may have raised eyebrows. Still, it highlights something people have been curious about for a while: how does a person in a position like hers achieve such financial success? It’s not a secret that Pelosi has a substantial stock portfolio and her trades are closely watched. Some even claim she’s one of the savviest investors in Congress.

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Nancy Pelosi’s husband sold more than $500K worth of Visa stock — just weeks before DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit

Nancy Pelosi’s husband unloaded more than $500,000 worth of Visa stock — less than three months before the credit card giant was slapped with federal antitrust charges, public documents show.

Visa was hit with a lawsuit on Tuesday that alleged the company has illegally monopolized the debit card market — the culmination of a years-long review conducted by the Justice Department’s antitrust unit.

Visa allegedly used its dominant market position to penalize customers and merchants who use competing payment processors, according to court papers.

Antitrust cops also allege that Visa forces financial tech firms to work with it by threatening to penalize those who don’t.

The Post has sought comment from Visa.

Meanwhile, Christopher Josephs, the tech entrepreneur who runs the “Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” on X, posted a screenshot of a congressional filing on July 3 which showed that the former House speaker’s husband, Paul Pelosi, had sold 2,000 shares of Visa worth between $500,000 and $1 million.

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Investment Firm Denies Shorting Trump Media Stock Day Before Assassination Attempt

Investment firm Austin Private Wealth LLC has denied claims that it placed a massive put option on Trump Media & Technology Group stock the day before the assassination attempt, asserting that the filing was a “clerical error”.

In stock market terms, a put option is basically a bet that the asset’s price will fall, which would have almost certainly occurred if Trump had been killed.

As writer and researcher Josh Walkos highlighted, it appeared as though the firm had “shorted 12,000,000 shares of $DJT via a put option. The filing date is July 12th, the day before the assassination attempt.”

“They have around $1 Billion in assets under management and this is by far the largest put placed,” wrote Walkos.

A Bloomberg terminal screenshot showed that the contract subsequently disappeared from the record.

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Wall Street’s Planned Theft of America’s Lands and Waters

Up next on Wall Street’s exploitation list.

If not stopped, on November 17th, the U.S. government will pass a rule that allows for America’s protected lands, including parks and wildlife refuges, to be listed on the N.Y. Stock Exchange. Natural Asset Companies (NACs) will be owned, managed, and traded by companies like BlackRock, Vanguard, and even China.

Since the early 2000’s, outfits like Goldman Sachs have been trying to trade air, or specifically carbon without much success. Their 2005 carbon exchange staggered along until it was quietly discontinued, and their Climate Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) is now facing delisting. “ESG” was the next attempt to monetize the un-monetizable, with the “E” part of that acronym standing for Environment, ill-defined as that was. Now ESG is failing. Market leaders say it is facing “a perfect storm of negative sentiment” and its U.S. investments fell by $163 billion in the first quarter of 2023 alone.

Its stepchild, Net-Zero, is so loathed, it looks like it might blow up the entire carbon scam. Says Australian senator Matt Canavan, “Net-Zero has absolutely carked it. It is a soundbite and totally insane. Almost everything we grow, we make, we do in our society relies on the use of fossil fuels.” Vanguard has pulled out of Net-Zero funds. The British government too is backing out of Net-Zero, saying “we won’t save the planet by bankrupting the British people.” New Zealand’s new government revised the country’s Net-Zero plans in its first week in office. In the hard hit Netherlands, the Farmer-Citizen movement is now the dominant party in the Dutch senate and every provincial assembly. Sweden has abandoned its 100 percent Net-Zero plans and Norway has announced another $18 billion in oil and gas investments.

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Moderna Shares Rise On Report US Gov’t Preparing Funding For mRNA Bird Flu Vax

Shares of Moderna are up more than 4% in the New York premarket trading session following a report by the Financial Times that the US government is preparing to “bankroll a late-stage trial of Moderna’s mRNA pandemic bird flu vaccine.” H5N1 is spreading across the US ahead of the November presidential elections, and some prominent doctors have already warned about university labs experimenting with H5N1 gain-of-function. 

Sources familiar with the talks between Moderna and the government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as Barda, say federal funding could be allocated to the pharma company as early as next month. 

“It is expected to total several tens of millions of dollars, and could be accompanied by a commitment to procure doses if the phase-three trials are successful,” they said.

Moderna has previously said it was trialing H5N1 flu vaccines, with interim data expected soon. 

Moderna is currently testing an H5N1 vaccine, from the 2.3.4.4b subset of viruses, in people. That trial began last summer.

But the trial’s listing in the Clinicaltrials.gov database is cagey about the dosages Moderna is testing, calling them simply dose number 1, 2 and 3. -Statnews

As of Wednesday, the US Department of Agriculture has detected 67 dairy cow herds with H5N1 infections in nine states: Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Michigan, Idaho, North Carolina, South Dakota, Ohio, and Colorado. 

The ongoing outbreak is linked to dairy cattle. Only two H5N1 cases have been detected among humans. The first was in April, with a Texas dairy worker, and the second was from a Michigan dairy farm last week. Both had mild infections and have since recovered.

FT also said the federal government is in talks with Pfizer about an mRNA vaccine targeting H5N1. 

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KA-CHING! Big Pharma Stocks Soar as They Plan Next Vaccine to Solve Bird Flu Pandemic

Major pharmaceuticals had a fantastic week in the global markets amid speculation that they may be ready to develop a vaccine to treat bird flu.

As fears grow around the world over the risk of another pandemic following the detection of avian bird flu in humans, pharmaceutical companies are benefitting from talk that they may be ready to develop another vaccine to stop another pandemic in its tracks.

The Motley Fool reports:

Shares of vaccine stocks Moderna, Novavax, and BioNTech SE rallied this week, appreciating 23.4%, 16.4%, and 9.3%, respectively, through Thursday trading, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

While these three stocks gained notoriety back in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears this week’s detection of avian bird flu in a second U.S. citizen and the first-ever detection of avian flu in a human in Australia are spurring fears of an outbreak and thus a possible boon for companies that can quickly produce a bird flu vaccine.

A new avian flu, H5N1, was detected in cattle back in March, with one worker in Texas coming down with associated conjunctivitis at that time. But on Wednesday this week, a second U.S. dairy worker in Michigan tested positive for the avian flu as well. That same day, an Australian dairy worker also tested positive for avian flu, marking the first-ever human case of avian flu in that country.

The discoveries spurred fears of an outbreak. That same day, the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, Dawn O’Connell, noted that Moderna and Pfizer, which partnered with BioNTech on the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, were in talks over a potential mRNA vaccine program for the new avian flu.

As has been extensively reported by The Gateway Pundit, major pharmaceuticals including Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca made billions in profits for their shareholders after developing a series of vaccines intended to treat COVID-19.

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