Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- December 18, 2019

Biggest business news of the past two days, without question: Amazon. Relentless. On top of everything else that has been reported about Amazon in the past 48 hours now this: it's own shipment company. LOL. That's been obvious for quite some time that Amazon would develop its own shipment company. We've discussed it before. But now it's official with the announcement that Amazon is partnering with a "real" airline to ship packages.

Wow. And once they get that experience, Amazon will buy its own jets -- later next yearm (2020), US airlines will have hundreds, if not thousands of passenger-carrying jets ready for immediate conversion to cargo jets. By August, 2020, prices for used jets will plummet. Or, the alternative, Boeing will be looking at a way to unload the 737 MAX as a cargo plane.

The second biggest story of the past 48 hours, the US housing market is taking off. Recession is right around the corner, they say. I don't recall the last time a recession occurred just as the US housing market took off but nothing surprises me any more.

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Market

Pre-market trading, 6:20 a.m. Central Time, December 18, 2019.

This is almost impossible to believe: all three indices are in the green --- again. Not only has the Santa Claus rally been percentage-wise and raw-number high, it's been unremitting. What is this? The fifth day of this rally. And if the market opens higher, new all-time records will be set and the president will be impeached.

Let's see what some companies are doing pre-market:

• AAPL: down 0.16%; down 46 cents on a $280/share company; profit taking
• UNP: absolutely flat; 0.00
• MU: up 15 cents; up 0.28%
• T: up 7 cents; up 0.18% -- and it recently announced an increase in its dividend and stock buyback program
• And then look at this: FedEx is down $12.45, down 7.63%, trading at $151
• AMZN: up almost $5; up 0.26%; at $1,790/share a lot of us are going to have to open Robinhood accounts to buy fractional shares in this company
• Bed Bath & Beyond: down 0.77% but pays 4.44%

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