As of 4:22 p.m.:

Closing Volume

- NYSE volume 19% below its one-month average

- NASDAQ volume 8% below its one-month average

- VIX index: down 2.76% to 14.44

Breadth

Sectors

% Movers

Nasdaq 100 Heat Map

I am now told that the supposedly "live" press conference was framed to be live on YouTube but it was an old press conference.

I know this is weird but I am trying to figure out what is truth and what is not.

Stay tuned.

I am selling the balance of my (now small sized) MSOS long.

I will be out by the close.

Reassessing after the president's comments at the presser.

In the President Trump's presser that is still going on, he said he is considering both sides of the cannabis rescheduling issue and that a decision will be made in a few weeks.

He said there were arguments on both sides.

Given the advance over the last few weeks in the space I suspect some will be disappointed.

I have just sold all of my MSOS call options (as they were very short term) and some of my MSOS common — all for a nice profit.

I have a 3 PM research meeting.

Back near the close.

Radio silence.

Here are today's things:

* Shorted more SPY at $647.66 and QQQ at $575.53.

* Shorted BBY at $76.82.

* Shorted more NVDA at $181.20.

* Shorted GRNY at $23.60.

* Shorted more GS at $752.61 and MS at $149.52.

* Shorted more JPM at $300.93.

* Shorted more TSLA at $350.15.

As far as the economic numbers are concerned, there is one place AI is showing up, which is the fixed investment side of the GDP ledger. All this CAPEX is, of course, inflationary as well.

Fixed Investment jumped substantially from just 0.08% to 0.59% of the bottom-line print. Q2 GDP Revised Sharply Higher As Data Center Investments Sharply Boost Growth

Yes, so far, AI has been nothing but inflationary. Even the AI realizes this! 

Dear AI: To date, has AI been inflationary or deflationary? 

Short-Term Effects

In the immediate years, the enormous investments in AI infrastructure, such as data centers and semiconductor manufacturing, have contributed to economic growth and, at times, lifted prices, especially in sectors like electricity and property. For example, increased demand from AI has raised American electricity bills by 7% in 2025 and contributed to "crowding out" effects that may push up costs elsewhere in the economy. This investment boom has acted as a temporary inflationary force until productivity gains materialize.

With S&P cash +4 handles I am further shorting the indices:

SPY $647.35

QQQ $576.43

- NYSE volume 22% below its one-month average;

- Nasdaq volume 2% below its one-month average;

- VIX index: down 3.43% to 14.34

Homebuilders low of the day.

Here is my homebuilder thesis

* This modifies my indictment of 'The Best Stocks in the Market' Tweet (published earlier)...

Dougie,

I woke up this morning to find NVDA had a steady low volume grind up all night after their earnings call yesterday although the failure to make it all the way back says volumes to me.

But first, I was taken by the fact that some people in Europe and Asia actually did some buying (without apparently thinking much about WHO they were buying from).

You've spent a lot of time and energy laying out some of the kinds of flaws in the NVDA story and financials and especially all the accounting gimmicks and business gimmicks like sales to customers to which they provide the money, etc. I've noted the flaws in the Street's presentation of "free cash flow" like ignoring the buyback burden to keep the hidden costs of employee compensation through options hidden and ignored. But we have to admit that so far, we've lost that battle.

For some reason, the overnight action clarified the why of NVDA's bulletproof price action. Yes - to a great extent it's the price momentum. But also, as the earnings call gets brushed off so easily - especially the upside down reaction to the $60 Bill buyback, it made me realize another simple in our face fact.....the VAST majority of market participants don't have any understanding of fundamental analysis, cannot understand or care about the tricks of pumping up sales, and don't really look too deeply why buybacks are made (that there may be poor motive as well as good one) - in short, simply don't look too deeply at cooked reported numbers and don't have the ability to do so.

I hate to say it but there is a world of uneducated, uncaring suckers...people who will jump into a ponzi scheme even if they know or just suspect it because they believe they will be off the train when it hits the wall.

When something finally breaks the momentum, it will either have to be the last dollar going in and the truly knowledgeable beginning their mass exit OR the momentum itself simply runs out of new money willing to pay the price in as it becomes increasingly obviously too f.....king high.

So momentum plus lack of expertise in actually understanding what's going on= NVDA - it's not just the momentum. It's that the buyers are incapable of understanding more deeply.

I have made some sales in JOE (consistent with my negative homebuilders thesis.

I put out more NVDA on the short side (still vs):

Dougie Kass

STAFF

31 minutes ago

shorted more nvda (sttll very small) at $181.62 il

With S&P cash +9 handles I have moved to medium sized in my Index shorts:

* SPY $647.82

* QQQ $576.22

Upside:

-TELO +32% (reports in vitro data supporting potential of Telomir-1 as a first-in-class epigenetic therapy influencing DNA Methylation pathways in cancer, aging, and age-related diseases)

-GPRE +17% (enters into agreement to sell Obion, Tennessee plant to POET for $190M in cash)

-PAHC +17% (earnings, guidance)

-BBW +16% (earnings, guidance)

-PSTG +16% (earnings, guidance)

-SNOW +14% (earnings, guidance)

-SPRC +10% (shareholders approve merger with AutoMax Motors)

-TVTX +8.7% (announces U.S. FDA Approves REMS Modification for FILSPARI (sparsentan) in IgA Nephropathy)

-BURL +7.3% (earnings, guidance)

-CRWV +5.6% (momentum)

-DG +5.6% (earnings, guidance)

-OLLI +5.1% (earnings, guidance)

-VSCO +4.8% (earnings, guidance)

-RDW +4.1% (awarded $25M Single Award IDIQ Contract by NASA to provide Biotechnology and Support On-Orbit Operations aboard the International Space Station)

-FIVE +4.0% (earnings, guidance)

-BF.B +3.9% (earnings, guidance)

-DLTR +3.1% (higher in sympathy with DG)

-TD +2.8% (earnings)

-RACE +2.7% (Morgan Stanley Wealth Management adds position)

-SLGN +2.5% (Tier1 firm Raised SLGN to Buy from Neutral, price target: $57 from $53)

-IP +2.1% (Tier1 firm Raised IP to Buy from Neutral, price target: $57 from $55)

Downside:

-OTLK -65% (US FDA issues Complete Response Letter (CRL) for resubmitted ONS-5010 BLA)

-MBRX -34% (announces exercise of warrants for $6M gross proceeds)

-CVM -31% (prices 1.11M shares at $9.00/share)

-APLM -24% (expects to discontinue all activities related to Sparta clinical trial as soon as possible; terminates all US employees)

-DOMO -20% (earnings, guidance)

-COO -18% (earnings, guidance)

-NTNX -10% (earnings, guidance)

-HRL -9.6% (earnings, guidance)

-NTAP -8.2% (earnings, guidance)

-HMY -8.1% (earnings, guidance)

-RR -6.1% (enters ATM agreement with Rodman & Wainwright; may sell Class B common stock up to $100M)

-BBWI -5.3% (earnings, guidance)

-VEEV -3.8% (earnings, guidance)

-LI -3.7% (earnings, guidance)

-CRWD -3.3% (earnings, guidance)

-URBN -2.3% (earnings)

I remain short bitcoin through MSTR:

skeptcl

NVIDIA beats by $0.04, beats on revs; guides Q3 revs in-line (181.60 -0.17)

• Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $1.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the FactSet Consensus of $1.01; revenues rose 55.6% year/year to $46.74 bln vs the $46.05 bln FactSet Consensus.
  • Data Center segment revenue grew 56% yr/yr and 5% sequentially to $41.1 bln.
    • Blackwell Data Center revenue grew 17% sequentially.
  • Gaming and AI PC segment revenue grew 49% yr/yr and 14% sequentially to $4.3 bln.
  • Professional Visualization segment revenue grew 32% yr/yr and 18% sequentially to $601 mln.
  • Automotive segment revenue grew 69% yr/yr and 3% sequentially to $586 mln.
  • There were no H20 sales to China-based customers in Q2.
  • Co benefited from a $180 mln release of previously reserved H20 inventory, from approximately $650 mln in unrestricted H20 sales to a customer outside of China.
  • For the quarter, non-GAAP gross margin was 72.7%. Excluding the $180 mln release, non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter would have been 72.3%.
• Co issues in-line guidance for Q3 (Oct), sees Q3 revs of $52.92-55.08 bln vs. $53.43 bln FactSet Consensus.
• Note: The company has not assumed any H20 shipments to China in the Q3 outlook.
• Blackwell: "Blackwell is the AI platform the world has been waiting for, delivering an exceptional generational leap — production of Blackwell Ultra is ramping at full speed, and demand is extraordinary," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "NVIDIA NVLink rack-scale computing is revolutionary, arriving just in time as reasoning AI models drive orders-of-magnitude increases in training and inference performance. The AI race is on, and Blackwell is the platform at its center."

Bonus — Here are some great links:

When Banks Break Out

Consumer Discretionary Makes a Run

Consumer Discretionary vs. Staples

September's Seasonality — The Weakest Link

The S&P 500 Isn't Worried... Yet

Shorted Tesla TSLA at $350.15. I plan to get much larger at these prices.

The steady and large inflows into MSOS continued apace yesterday:

I covered a portion of my index shorts during last night's weakness — moving from medium sized to small sized.

Early Thursday morning (4:20 AM) I am reshorting (with a scale higher and an objective to move back to medium sized):

* SPY $647.66

* QQQ $574.34 

The S&P Short Range Oscillator stands at 1.27% vs. 2.20% — moving back towards the neutral line but still modestly overbought.

I reduced my index shorts into weakness last night and plan to reshort any rally.