Volume and VIX

- NYSE volume 3% below its one-month average

- NASDAQ volume, 19% below its one-month average

- VIX index: down 3.18% to 18.57

Closing Breadth

S&P 500 Sectors

% Movers

Nasdaq 100 Heat Map

This might be the most respectful, thoughtful and objective comment this year. Thanks L3:

LifeLongLearner

Same Destination, Different Routes: DK and TN on Bitcoin’s Tipping Point

I’ve followed Doug Kass for years, and while I don’t always agree with every position—especially on Bitcoin—I deeply respect his disciplined approach to trading, his macro awareness, and his ability to manage risk across equity and treasury cycles. Doug has consistently demonstrated second-level thinking—not just what the data says, but what it means when interpreted by markets. That’s a rare skill.

On Bitcoin, Doug makes a valid point: it’s difficult to assign intrinsic value—just as it is with gold—and markets driven by sentiment and narrative are inherently more volatile. His skepticism isn’t ignorance; it’s experienced caution, rooted in decades of managing real capital through real risk.

Let’s also recognize that when TechNova, our Master Jedi, expresses a similar bearish view on crypto via covered calls, it’s met with admiration. TN’s recent observations around the $105K–$109K congestion zone echo the same thesis: a correction may be inevitable. Doug’s expression is through naked shorting, TN’s through risk-defined options, but both deserve the same intellectual respect. Different playbooks. Same read on the field.

This forum shines because of this diversity—voices like TechNova, who bring depth and nuance to the crypto discussion, and voices like Doug Kass, who challenge consensus with conviction and clarity. The contrast isn’t division—it’s strength.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle

I'm re-establishing my index shorts, but baby steps:

* Shorted SPY $590.13

* Shorted QQQ $518.96

From Peter Boockvar:

Positives,

1) From the International Trade Court, "Because of the Constitution's express allocation of the tariff power to Congress, we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President. We instead read IEEPA's provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers."

2) The PCE inflation stats were as expected with it following CPI and PPI that were reported weeks ago. Both headline and core for April rose .1% m/o/m with the y/o/y gains being 2.1% and 2.5% respectively vs 2.3% and 2.7% in the month before. Versus last year, the disinflation continued with goods prices down .4% while services inflation offset that, rising by 3.3%.

3) There was an .8% m/o/m rise in income in April that was well above the .3% consensus. This took the savings rate to 4.9% from 4.3% but the income surprise was very isolated. The main factors for the upside in income were the 6.9% rise in social security payments m/o/m and a 21% jump in farm income. Private sector wages and salaries, income was up by .5% m/o/m which is about in line with the 6 month trend.

4) Personal spending in April was higher by .2% m/o/m as forecasted. All of the gain came from the spend on services as the buying of goods was negative, particularly those for durable goods.

5) The May Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index rebounded to 98 from 85.7 and was 11 pts above expectations. Almost all of the improvement was seen from the Expectations component which jumped to 72.8 from 55.4 while the Present Situation rose more modestly to 135.9 from 131.1. For perspective, this overall index stood at 109.6 in October 2024, 100.1 in February 2025. After rising by 100 bps in April to 7%, one yr inflation expectations slipped back by 50 bps to a still very elevated 6.5%.

6) The final May UoM consumer confidence index was 52.2 vs 50.8 initially and unchanged with April. The UoM said, "Sentiment had ebbed at the preliminary reading for May but turned a corner in the latter half of the month following the temporary pause on some tariffs on China goods. Expected business conditions improved after mid-month, likely a consequence of the trade policy announcement. However, these positive changes were offset by declines in current personal finances stemming from stagnating incomes throughout May. Overall, consumers see the outlook for the economy as no worse than last month, but they remained quite worried about the future."

7) The $87.6b April goods trade deficit which follows the tariff front running influenced $162b seen in March was well below the estimate of $143b because imports collapsed by 20% m/o/m, well more than the 3.4% rise in exports. This led to a big upward revision to the Atlanta's Q2 GDP forecast.

8) Apartment List released its National Rent Report covering May and it reflected a .4% m/o/m rise in new rent prices, up for a 4th straight month in a seasonal time of increases. But, they are still down .5% y/o/y. Supply is still coming online from many projects green lit before interest rates spiked. This drove the vacancy rate up to 7%, a new high dating back to 2017 when they started calculating this. Most are coming from the sunbelt states. Apartment List said, "2024 saw the most new apartment completions since the mid-1980s, and although we're past the peak of new multi family construction, this year is still bringing a robust level of new supply."

9) From Best Buy: "We believe the consumer has remained resilient while dealing with persistent inflation, making them value focused and thoughtful about big ticket purchases. We also still see a customer that is willing to spend on high price point products when they need to or when there is technology innovation."

10) From Ulta Beauty: "During the quarter, amidst considerable macro noise and uncertainty, guests responded positively to key actions that we took to drive our business, including improved execution, exciting new and exclusive brand launches, evolve promotional plans, and relevant marketing."

11) From Elf Beauty: "Looking at Q1 to date, we are seeing our consumption trends better than what we saw in Q4 and continuing to trend well ahead of the category. In the month of April, we were the only top five cosmetics brand to post growth with Elf gaining an additional 130 bps of market share in the US."

12) From Burlington Stores: "As we discussed in our Q4 call in early March, the quarter started off slowly with the trend in February being negatively impacted by unfavorable weather and a slower pace of tax refunds vs last year. We were pleased that the sales trend picked up in the March and April period, once these factors began to normalize."

13) From Gap: "Old Navy and Gap saw growth across all income cohorts, with Old Navy gaining share in both top and bottom cohorts and Gap gaining share in top and middle cohorts, showing our strategic intent is working."

14) From Dick's Sporting Goods: "In Q1, we saw growth in both average ticket and transactions. In fact, compared to the same period last year, more athletes purchased from us, they purchased more frequently and they spent more each trip."

15) From Dell: Revenue was up 5% and in particular, "We experienced exceptionally strong demand for AI optimized servers, building on the momentum discussed in February...That said, given the scale of these opportunities, variability in timing, and choices around technology, the inherent nonlinear nature of demand and associated shipments is likely to persist...We saw double digit demand growth across small business, medium business and large enterprise. Commercial demand was strongest in North America, with EMEA and Asia Pac both up double digits. While the PC refresh remains behind prior cycles, we are seeing indicators that the installed base is upgrading to new Windows 11 PCs, many of them AI PCs."

16) From Salesforce: "We saw very strong growth in our small and medium market business. It really surprised us."

17) French CPI figure for May was up .6% y/o/y vs the estimate of up .9% with a drop in energy prices most helping, down by 8.1% y/o/y. Services inflation also moderated to 2.1% growth from 2.4% in April y/o/y. Manufactured goods prices were lower by .2% y/o/y for a 3rd month.

18) Spanish and Italian May CPI were about as expected with the former up 1.9% y/o/y and the latter higher by 1.9% y/o/y too.

19) The May Economic Confidence index for the Eurozone was up 1 pt m/o/m to 94.8 and above the estimate of 94.1. That though compares with 95.1 in March and 96.2 in February. Manufacturing confidence improved to the least negative in a few years, but the services component fell to the lowest in a few years. Retail and construction confidence got back what it lost in April while consumer confidence remains soft, though less so m/o/m.

20) The Bank of Korea cut interest rates by 25 bps as expected to 2.50% and said this about the outlook, "Since growth momentum has weakened more significantly than initially expected, we believe there's a possibility rates will be cut more than we thought going forward."

Negatives,

1) Initial jobless claims jumped to 240k from 226k and that was 10k more than expected. The 4 week average though was unchanged at 231k because of a print of 241k fell out. Of particular note too, continuing claims rose to 1.919mm from 1.893mm which is the most since November 2021.

2) Pending home sales fell 6.3% m/o/m in April after rising by 5.5% in March and well below the estimate of down 1%. The NAR said, “Despite an increase in housing inventory, we are not seeing higher home sales. Lower mortgage rates are essential to bring home buyers back into the housing market.”

3) Non defense capital goods aircraft line for April was lower by 1.3% m/o/m vs the estimate of down .2%, only partly offset by a 2 tenths upward revision to March, seeing a .3% increase.

4) Q1 GDP is old news but was left little revised, down .2% vs the initial print of -.3%. Within though, personal spending was revised lower to 1.2% q/o/q annualized growth vs 1.8% in the first round. Inventories were revised up, government spending was less negative and capital spending was a bit better than initially reported.

5) The World Container Index said the price of a 40 foot container from Shanghai to LA rose another 17% w/o/w to $3,738, up $541. That's a 3 month high. The price of a trip from Shanghai to NY was up by 14% w/o/w to $5,172, up by $645.

6) Read the comment section of the Dallas manufacturing survey which came in at -15.3., https://www.dallasfed.org/research/surveys/tmos/2025/2505#tab-comments

7) The May Chicago manufacturing index fell to 40.5 from 44.6. The Richmond index was -9 vs -13.

8) From Costco: "Our buyers continued to do an excellent job finding new and exciting items at great values, which are resonating well with our members, even as they remain very choiceful in their spending on discretionary items." On pricing/inflation, "Fresh food and sundries inflation remained relatively similar to last quarter. In non-foods, we saw low single digit inflation return for the first time in a number of quarters. This was driven primarily by imported items. As a reminder, about a third of our sales in the US are imported and about two-thirds of those ales are in non-foods. Items imported from China represent about 8% of total US sales."

9) From Best Buy: "For the most part, customer behavior in Q1 did not change materially from the commentary we have shared for the past several quarters. Customers continued to be deal focused and attracted to more predictable sales moments...We've been very clear and saying consumers are making trade-offs, and we can see that within our categories."

10) From Ulta Beauty: "Consumer engagement with beauty remains healthy, and our insights indicated beauty and wellness remain a top priority for beauty enthusiasts who tell us that they're more willing to make trade-offs in other discretionary areas to maintain their beauty regiments. At the same time, they are cautious and value is an increasingly important priority as they navigate ongoing wallet pressures."

11) From Burlington Stores: On the consumer, "Clearly, we saw a deceleration in our comp trend from Q4 to Q1. Our comp growth in the first quarter was flat...To understand this trend, we have analyzed our own internal sales data. This shows the slowdown from Q4 to Q1 was broad based across trade areas with different demographic characteristics. This is just one quarter, so it is too early to say, if the slowdown that we saw in our trend from Q4 to Q1 is the start of a broader pullback in consumer spending."

12) From Gap: Banana Republic comps were flat "as we continue to focus on re-establishing this premium brand in our portfolio. And as we expected, Athleta comps have been challenging, down 8%." The cost of tariffs? "based on what we know today, if current tariffs of 30% on most imports from China and 10% on most imports from other countries remain for the balance of the year, we estimate a gross incremental cost of approximately $250 million to $300 million. We currently have strategies to mitigate more than half of that amount."

13) From Capri Holding: "Overall, our business remained challenged and we were disappointed with our performance. Revenue decreased 15% during the quarter as we were impacted by the continued softening demand for fashion luxury goods globally."

14) From Macy's: "Given uncertainty regarding the tariff impact on consumer health and demand, we believe it's prudent to incorporate a more choiceful consumer into our outlook for the quarter and for the remainder of the year. Our second quarter and full year guidance ranges assume that the promotional landscape intensifies as the year progresses, international tourism does not rebound and we continue to reinvest savings from closed stores and distribution centers in the initiatives that support our long-term growth."

15) From Elf Beauty: "To partially mitigate the impact from tariffs, we plan to take $1 increase on our entire product assortment globally, effective August 1. We are intentional in not going beyond that $1 to preserve our value proposition...This is only the third price increase we've taken in our 21 year history, unlike many of our competitors who regularly take price increases. Historically, consumers have been able to accept a dollar increase."

16) From Dell: "The consumer market remains challenged, consumer revenue declined 19%, and the industry pricing remained competitive."

17) From HP: "Against the backdrop of a highly dynamic landscape, we delivered another quarter of solid top line growth driven by continued momentum in the Personal Systems commercial business. However, due to additional tariff costs that could not be fully mitigated in the quarter, our non-GAAP operating profit fell short of expectations...We continue to expect the PC market will grow in 2025, but softer than originally planned, driven by increased macro uncertainty...In Print, we continue to expect the market to decline, low single digits for calendar year 2025."

18) From Okta: "We continue to take a prudent approach to forward guidance that factors in our go-to-market specialization that was rolled out in Q1 of FY26. Additionally, we're now factoring in potential risks related to the uncertain economic environment for the remainder of FY26."

19) From Booz Allen Hamilton: "The federal government is rethinking agency missions, finding ways to accomplish those missions differently and looking for ways to reduce spending and increase efficiency. To get there, we are seeing agency reorganizations, reductions in government personnel and spending levels, as well as contract reviews. These are especially acute in civilian agencies, and as a result, we are seeing a decrease in the pace of awards in civil, as well as run rate changes in some of our contracts. At the same time, the government is leading initiatives to improve procurement regulations and practices, such as the revision of the Federal Acquisitions Regulation or FAR and we expect to see more contracts move to fixed price and outcome based."

20) Consumer price inflation in Japan remained hot in May. Tokyo CPI rose 3.3% y/o/y ex food and energy, up from 3.1% in April and one tenth above expectations. The headline rate was higher by 3.4% y/o/y. Due to a spike in the price of rice, food costs rose 5.8% y/o/y.

21) Germany's May CPI rose 2.1% y/o/y, one tenth more than expected.

douglas cassel

Upon reading about Doug K shorting BTC, I am surprised he doesn't do so more often. BTC is a great vehicle for trading. It is very volatile, easy to short and has liquid options. The lack of traditional fundamentals, although viewed as a problem, can also be seen as a feature. Nothing ruins a good chart faster than a surprise earning announcement. I suspect large trading firms like Citadel and Jane Street are becoming more active as well.

Whether one feels BTC is the world's biggest scam, or the future of finance, one can still make money on the trade. No matter whether BTC goes to zero or a million, there is a lot of opportunity either way. In fact, you don't even need to trade it. Peter Schiff, a monotonal, self-aggrandizing gold bug, has found new relevance bashing BTC to whatever audience will listen.

Of course, even the doubters, seduced by the real potential for profit, are contributing to the network effect by their participation in the BTC market.

The power of the network is most clearly demonstrated when it draws in non-believers. Everyone doesn't need to accept BTC, only enough people to make everyone else do something about it.

From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.

H. P. Lovecraft

Dougie Kass

In other words, a greater fool's game (cheerleaded by a number of vocal actors (Saylor, et al) in which the intrinsic value is incalculable, so pricing is a function of growing acceptance of an increased amount of participants.

Sounds very unstable (and possibly fleeting) to me as you all know!

sbickleyinreno

You are amazing in many ways Dougie, but perhaps on BTC you are the "old fool" who can't adjust to a modern paradigm? Please inform us of the intrinsic valuation of gold and how you calculate that one? What makes BTC any different? You never dive deep into your arguments against BTC; they are consistently shallow even when challenged by the likes of TN who presents a multi-level and multi-layered argument in favor of BTC. I hate to say it, but you and Munger, and the "old school" come off as bitter and stuck in your ways. How are the old ways working out for us in "fiat-land"? This whole shitshow comes to a very bad ending soon enough sticking with the current paradigm; something has to change.

Dougie Kass

For a number of reasons I wrote that I don't plan on debating about bitcoin.

1. Yes I am an old fool. And I am bitter and stuck in my old ways.
2. As I have written bitcoin is much like gold - I cant calculate an intrinsic value. Gold and bitcoin are much like religion - you either believe in God or you don't!
3. As to fiatland, I have never endorsed fiat currency - so that is a straw man's argument on your part.
4. I shorted more bitcoin, as posted - BITO, BITB and IBIT
5. As I posted earlier this morning - don't charts matter and what about the other threats noted (like quantum computing)?

Here was my Barron's interview.

Break in!

Equities move abruptly lower on reports that administration plans to widen sanctions on Chinese technology companies.

"And it’s hard to figure out what is true investment information, and what is pure noise. And so, what we’ve been arguing and what I argued for my entire career has been the way to sift out the true investment information is to stick to a hard core process. No matter what happens, come hell or high water, do not deviate from that process. And as we were talking about before, for us, it’s profits, liquidity, sentiment and valuation. We never deviate from that... So yes, we know what’s going on. We know what the Fed is doing. We know everything, and we’re aware of that, but we stick to our process and we stick to our models and to our indicators to keep the hardcore process and not just flail around every five seconds."

- Richard Bernstein, Navigate The Noise: Investing in The New Age of Media and Hype

Lost in the market hysteria and noise over the last seven months — the S&P 500 Index has gone nowhere since October 2024:

Scott Galloway's No Mercy/No Malice:  Rich Kids | No Mercy / No Malice

- NYSE volume is 14% below its one-month average;

- Nasdaq volume is 35% below its one-month average;

- VIX index: up 0.05% to 19.19

Adding to short bitcoin exposure.

And, adding to my MSTR short.

Apropos to the earlier cannabis post, the debt maturity cliff has commenced:

AYR Announces Delay of Q1 2024 Financial Statements and MD&A, Expected Cease Trade Order and Strategic Review Process :: Ayr Wellness Inc. (AYR.A)

From Peter Boockvar:

What would a deal even look like?/Bunch of earnings calls

With Treasury Secretary Bessent saying yesterday on Fox News that the trade/tariff talks with China are "a bit stalled," it again begs the question of what a deal would even look like. Will it be similar to the 2018-2019 deal with China buying more soybeans and other stuff? Will it be more substantive with China lowering barriers to doing business there and some firm legal assurances on IP protection (which was attempted before), among other things? Would love to be a fly on that negotiating wall.

With so many earnings calls to go through, I'll just get right to it.

From Costco:

They talked about "delivering some strong financial results while also maintaining our competitive price position despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop."

"Our buyers continued to do an excellent job finding new and exciting items at great values, which are resonating well with our members, even as they remain very choiceful in their spending on discretionary items."

On how they are dealing with tariffs. "we rerouted many goods sourced from countries with large tariff exposure to our non-US markets. In the US, we pulled forward some items that we had planned for the summer and sourced additional locally produced goods to reduce tariff impacts and ensure that we were in stock."

"In the quarter, gold and jewelry, toys, housewares, and home furnishings were up double digits. While we continue to grow share in most non-food departments, we are seeing some deceleration in y/o/y growth as we start to lap tougher compares in bullion and gift card sales from a year ago. Food and sundries had mid to high single digit comps, with cola and frozen food showing the strongest results."

On pricing/inflation, "Fresh food and sundries inflation remained relatively similar to last quarter. In non-foods, we saw low single digit inflation return for the first time in a number of quarters. This was driven primarily by imported items. As a reminder, about a third of our sales in the US are imported and about two-thirds of those ales are in non-foods. Items imported from China represent about 8% of total US sales."

To a question on whether Costco saw consumers pull forward spending ahead of expected tariff induced price increases, "we saw a slight impact on it. To quantify it, it was very tough to do. It was very tough to quantify that we saw any certain percent of pull forward over the fear of tariffs."

From Best Buy:

"For the most part, customer behavior in Q1 did not change materially from the commentary we have shared for the past several quarters. Customers continued to be deal focused and attracted to more predictable sales moments."

"We believe the consumer has remained resilient while dealing with persistent inflation, making them value focused and thoughtful about big ticket purchases. We also still see a customer that is willing to spend on high price point products when they need to or when there is technology innovation...We've been very clear and saying consumers are making trade-offs, and we can see that within our categories."

On the question to them too over whether they saw a pull forward in spending behavior, "It's a little hard to look at the specific impact to a pull forward, if you will, because of the shifting of the events for Easter. But likely there was a few weeks - a couple of weeks there that were elevated because of the pull forward."

There was also a lot of discussion on how they are internally sourcing product from China, Mexico, and others in light of the tariffs.

From Ulta Beauty:

"During the quarter, amidst considerable macro noise and uncertainty, guests responded positively to key actions that we took to drive our business, including improved execution, exciting new and exclusive brand launches, evolve promotional plans, and relevant marketing." They gained market share as a result of these initiatives.

"Consumer engagement with beauty remains healthy, and our insights indicated beauty and wellness remain a top priority for beauty enthusiasts who tell us that they're more willing to make trade-offs in other discretionary areas to maintain their beauty regiments. At the same time, they are cautious and value is an increasingly important priority as they navigate ongoing wallet pressures."

"Many consumers indicate that they are leaning into beauty as a comfort and escape from the stress of macro uncertainty, and we expect this emotional connection will support the category's resilience going forward."

From Burlington Stores that is not just selling coats anymore and are a broad based off-price retailer:

"As we discussed in our Q4 call in early March, the quarter started off slowly with the trend in February being negatively impacted by unfavorable weather and a slower pace of tax refunds vs last year. We were pleased that the sales trend picked up in the March and April period, once these factors began to normalize."

They gave guidance but "we recognize that the level of external uncertainty has increased over the last couple of months."

On tariffs, "The tariffs that were announced in early April were of a scope and a scale will beyond the expectations of most analysts. The initial effect of these tariffs was to effectively shut down the flow of merchandise from China. If that had continued, then it would have been bad for consumers and bad for retailers, and that includes off-price retailers. For the past two weeks since the tariffs on imports from China were cut from 145% to 30%, merchandise vendors have been scrambling to catch up."

"This stop-start surge volatility is likely to lead to shortages in some merchandise categories, but it might also create excess supply in others. We see both risks and opportunities in the months ahead, and we are managing our business accordingly."

On the consumer, "Clearly, we saw a deceleration in our comp trend from Q4 to Q1. Our comp growth in the first quarter was flat...To understand this trend, we have analyzed our own internal sales data. This shows the slowdown from Q4 to Q1 was broad based across trade areas with different demographic characteristics. This is just one quarter, so it is too early to say, if the slowdown that we saw in our trend from Q4 to Q1 is the start of a broader pullback in consumer spending."

"In addition to this trend, we are also somewhat concerned about macroeconomic indicators. Many economists have raised their probability estimates for a recession later this year. And there are also concerns that inflation will go up a tariffs work their way through the economy."

From Gap:

"Old Navy and Gap saw growth across all income cohorts, with Old Navy gaining share in both top and bottom cohorts and Gap gaining share in top and middle cohorts, showing our strategic intent is working." Banana Republic comps were flat "as we continue to focus on re-establishing this premium brand in our portfolio. And as we expected, Athleta comps have been challenging, down 8%."

They talked about tariffs too as they source from China, Vietnam, Indonesia and others. And, "We're planning to double our vendor sourcing of American grown cotton in 2026."

The cost of tariffs? "based on what we know today, if current tariffs of 30% on most imports from China and 10% on most imports from other countries remain for the balance of the year, we estimate a gross incremental cost of approximately $250 million to $300 million. We currently have strategies to mitigate more than half of that amount."

Shifting to tech, from Dell:

Revenue was up 5% and in particular, "We experienced exceptionally strong demand for AI optimized servers, building on the momentum discussed in February...That said, given the scale of these opportunities, variability in timing, and choices around technology, the inherent nonlinear nature of demand and associated shipments is likely to persist."

"We saw double digit demand growth across small business, medium business and large enterprise. Commercial demand was strongest in North America, with EMEA and Asia Pac both up double digits. While the PC refresh remains behind prior cycles, we are seeing indicators that the installed base is upgrading to new Windows 11 PCs, many of them AI PCs."

"The consumer market remains challenged, consumer revenue declined 19%, and the industry pricing remained competitive."

On the question about pull forward, "I'm certain we had some customers pulling demand. They certainly saw what was happening in the marketplace and how dynamic things were, and there's no way to say that that didn't happen. I'm sure it did. To what degree? I don't know."

To some overseas data of note. Consumer price inflation in Japan remained hot in May. Tokyo CPI rose 3.3% y/o/y ex food and energy, up from 3.1% in April and one tenth above expectations. The headline rate was higher by 3.4% y/o/y. Due to a spike in the price of rice, food costs rose 5.8% y/o/y. This all with an overnight rate set by the BoJ of just .50% but as seen with the longer end of their yield curve and the rise in rates, the market clearly has spoken that they don't like inflation. That said, yields are lower overnight and inflation breakevens are as well after the recent jump.

Core/Core CPI in Tokyo y/o/y

Japan 10 yr Inflation Breakeven

In Europe, Spanish and Italian May CPI were about as expected with the former up 1.9% y/o/y and the latter higher by 1.9% y/o/y too. German CPI at 8am est is forecasted to rise by 2% y/o/y.

The debate over more ECB rate cuts is heated with the hawks wanting to call timeout and the doves believing that even lower rates are needed.

From Peter Boockvar:

Quick rundown on the data dump

As is usually the case, the PCE inflation stats were as expected with it following CPI and PPI that were reported weeks ago. Both headline and core for April rose .1% m/o/m with the y/o/y gains being 2.1% and 2.5% respectively vs 2.3% and 2.7% in the month before. Versus last year, the disinflation continued with goods prices down .4% while services inflation offset that, rising by 3.3%.

Personal spending in April was higher by .2% m/o/m as forecasted but there was an .8% m/o/m rise in income that was well above the .3% consensus. This took the savings rate to 4.9% from 4.3% but the income surprise was very isolated. The main factors for the upside in income were the 6.9% rise in social security payments m/o/m and a 21% jump in farm income. I can't explain each but looking at just private sector wages and salaries, income was up by .5% m/o/m which is about in line with the 6 month trend.

With spending, all of the gain came from the spend on services as the buying of goods was negative, particularly those for durable goods. We heard countless times from Corporate America that consumers are more circumspect in spending money on discretionary big ticket items, most recently from Home Depot, Lowe's and Best Buy where they have to borrow money to make the purchase.

The other thing of note with the data dump today was the $87.6b April goods trade deficit which follows the tariff front running influenced $162b seen in March. The April figure was well below the estimate of $143b because imports collapsed by 20% m/o/m, well more than the 3.4% rise in exports.

April of course captures the tariff on and off drama and I'm guessing the April estimate of a $143b deficit assumed a rush of imports after the 90 day pause that just didn't come as many tariff rates were still too high.

Bottom line to all of the above, nothing market moving with the inflation data as expected and with the spending figure in line with expectations, no tweaks needed to Q2 GDP estimates based on this input. On the other hand, the much lower than expected April trade deficit in goods will lead to an upward move in people's Q2 GDP forecasts.

Upside:

-RRGB +35% (earnings, guidance)

-PATH +13% (earnings, guidance)

-STRZ +9.0% (earnings)

-ULTA +8.7% (earnings, guidance)

-YTRA +7.7% (earnings)

-ZS +4.7% (earnings, guidance)

-NXTC +4.5% (NextCure and LigaChemBio to Present Trial in Progress Poster for LNCB74, a B7-H4 Targeted Antibody-Drug Conjugate, as Monotherapy in Participants with Advanced Solid Tumors at ASCO 2025)

-TIGR +2.7% (earnings)

Downside:

-SATS -26% (won’t make interest payment on senior spectrum secured notes due to FCC review, entering 30-day grace period)

-GAP -14% (earnings, guidance)

-CERO -13% (doses First Patient with CER-1236 in Phase 1 Clinical Trial for Acute Myeloid Leukemia)

-SMMT -13% (announces topline results from the Phase III clinical trial, HARMONi, first global Phase III study evaluating ivonescimab)

-ESTC -11% (earnings, guidance)

-REGN -11% (smoker’s lung drug data)

-AEO -8.8% (earnings, guidance)

-COO -7.6% (earnings, guidance)

-NTAP -6.2% (earnings, guidance)

-PD -5.2% (earnings, guidance)

-MRVL -3.8% (earnings, guidance)

-ABNB -2.9% (Truist Cuts ABNB to Sell from Hold, price target: $106)

Most active premarket ETFs as of 8:24 a.m. ET:

Premarket percentage movers at 8:32 a.m. ET:

Here we go again....

The President's statement is causing another fall in futures.

douglas cassel

Upon reading about Doug K shorting BTC, I am surprised he doesn't do so more often. BTC is a great vehicle for trading. It is very volatile, easy to short and has liquid options. The lack of traditional fundamentals, although viewed as a problem, can also be seen as a feature. Nothing ruins a good chart faster than a surprise earning announcement. I suspect large trading firms like Citadel and Jane Street are becoming more active as well.

Whether one feels BTC is the world's biggest scam, or the future of finance, one can still make money on the trade. No matter whether BTC goes to zero or a million, there is a lot of opportunity either way. In fact, you don't even need to trade it. Peter Schiff, a monotonal, self-aggrandizing gold bug, has found new relevance bashing BTC to whatever audience will listen.

Of course, even the doubters, seduced by the real potential for profit, are contributing to the network effect by their participation in the BTC market.

The power of the network is most clearly demonstrated when it draws in non-believers. Everyone doesn't need to accept BTC, only enough people to make everyone else do something about it.

From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.

H. P. Lovecraft

Dougie Kass

In other words, a greater fool's game (cheerleaded by a number of vocal actors (Saylor, et al) in which the intrinsic value is incalculable, so pricing is a function of growing acceptance of an increased amount of participants.

Sounds very unstable (and possibly fleeting) to me as you all know!

* What happened to the commotion about the bullish Whaley and Zweig breadth thrusts that technical analysts got excited about 1-2 weeks ago?

Bonus - Here are some links:

Third-Year Bull Market Itch

How All-Time Highs Impact Short-Term Performance

Market Is Overbought and Investors Complacent

Toyota Is a Tech Investor

I shorted Bitcoin (BITO, BITB and IBIT) yesterday:

The Technicals

and...

The Threat

Wolf Street howls about U.S. debt.

The S&P Short Range Oscillator moved back into overbought — at 0.91% vs. -0.75% (previously oversold).

I have no index positions currently — looking to reshort strength.

Estimates of how much debt is coming due in 2026 vary from as low as $2 billion, as Viridian’s Colombo pegs the figure, to as much as $3 billion, as noted in a September public letter to The Cannabist’s board from FiSai US Management, a Los Angeles-area, marijuana-focused investment fund that loaned the company $50 million.

But most of the loans maturing next year are held by a handful of companies: Five firms report more than $1.8 billion in loans coming due in 2026 on their publicly available earnings statements, according to quarterly reports filed in November.

They are:

• Curaleaf Holdings with $460 million coming due in December 2026.
• Cresco Labs, $400 million, August 2026.
• Trulieve Cannabis Corp., $390 million.
• Ayr Wellness, $358 million.
• Verano Holdings Corp., $350 million, October 2026.

- Source: MJ BIZ DAILY

This data is from year end 2024 — the fundamental pressures on these companies (as I have repeatedly noted) have worsened as product price competition has intensified, Florida failed to pass adult recreational use and potentially favorable legislation stalls.

Most of these stocks are penny stocks — priced as (long-term) options.

High risk, high reward.

 And here is my Ludacris Forecast: