Notes From All Over -- The Number To Watch Today: 35,615? August 25, 2021

First things first: I don't know how they do it, but Einstein Bros Bagels cream cheese is so much better than Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and the latter is so far ahead of whatever is in third place. My wife buys me a lox and bagel when she likes me. Today I got a lox and bagel. LOL.

Ten-year treasury: 1.307%. Starting to climb. 

Durable goods: down 0.1% vs a negative 0.5% -- so very, very good news. Durable goods ex-transportation, up 0.7% vs 0.5% forecast. Durable goods ex-defense, negative 1.2% in July, 2021. 

Market reaction: mute. Steve Liesman thinks these are relatively good numbers. I agree with Liesman: US corporations don't just quit in the face of inflation or a pandemic. They keep moving along. 

Dividends: for those interested, September is always a great month.

August doldrums: not! 

White paper: most anticipated "white paper" -- the IG report on amount of equipment US turned over to the Taliban. Top line: 75,000 vehicles left in Afghanistan.

Most important business story of the day: US is nearing a deal for Nvidia supercomputer as it waits for delayed Intel machine -- sources. Link here. Wow, wow, wow -- just as I was posting that, it was a headline story over at CNBC minutes ago -- 7:15 a.m. CT, August 25, 2021. 

Nancy Pelosi: running the show. Will have $5 trillion spending bill up for vote next week, or something like that; I"m not sure of the details; might have it wrong. Bottom line: it's going to be hard for any politico to vote against this except the few in certain very conservative districts. Huge implications. Pre-K to two years of college free. That's just the beginning, just the meme.

Feature story for the day: whether you like him, hate him, or completely indifferent, Jim Cramer is incredible. 

Jim is up at 4:00 a..m. preparing for his day. He is on CNBC from 8:00 - 9:00 a.m. CT -- perhaps the best hour of the day for investors. Then again, he closes out the day on CNBC from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. CT which is really, really good if one understands Cramer talks as an investor at times, and as a trader at other times, and it's difficult to tell the difference. On top of that, he writes some good stuff, exhibit A: "The days of Amazon as "Death Star" are over." Link here. A must read. I may come back to this one if I have time. 

Note: There is so much going on. I don't know if folks are paying attention, but things are moving very, very quickly. And this is August when things should be slowing down.

Court rulings:

• I'm not going to post any updates regarding court rulings over the past few days. I don't want to jinx all the good news.
  
• may do that later, for the archives;
  

USC scandal:

• another mom pleads guilty. Link here.

Afghanistan:

• in Kabul: 5,000 US troops need to be off the ground by August 31, 2021; movement needs to start this Friday if that's going to happen;
• remember: it was the president's own line in the sand; now it's the Taliban telling him to not cross that line; if he does, it will be ugly on the ground
  
• in Washington, DC: Biden's press conference on Afghanistan was four hours late; lasted six minutes (and not all of it related to Afghanistan); and, took no questions (he's handling the press perfectly -- whether you like him or not, he's handling the press just right; he's staying focused on his plan).
• military following orders: greatest humanitarian airlift in history -- apparently upwards of 70,000 people evacuated since August 14, 2021; needs to be fact-checked;
  

Energy:

• natural gas production hits new year-to-date high. Link here.
• top energy stocks for September, 2021: MPC, COP, DVN -- Investopedia.
• propane: US consumption to increase this winter, especially in the winter. EIA. And it's going to be very, very expensive.
  

Headlines: stories I probably won't get back to today:

• T-Mobile wins title of fastest US carrier. Whoo-hoo! That's what we have. LOL. Link here.
• Covid-19: as posted on the blog yesterday, it appears delta surge has peaked. Now, lambda; what happend to the kraken variant? Link here.
• Smartphone fire: Samsung phone fire results in emergency evacuation. Alaska Airlines. Link here.
• Luxshare: "Little Floxconn" for Apple. Reported record revenue and profit in 1H21 -- proxy for AAPL Stay tuned. Link here.
• Farmers / inflation: US farmers brace for inflation as highs of crop rally wear off. Link here.
• Cathie Wood is back! Alibaba and other Chinese tech stocks are rallying. Seriously. Huge. Link here. Be greedy when others are fearful; fearful when others are greedy.
• Samsung: will hire 40,000 in $205 billion three-year spree. Link here.
  

China / Taiwan: I'm not going to provide links, comments now regarding this subject, but watching hard / soft takeover possibilities closely. My hunch: it will be a combination of both. Deadline for China: 2027.

US equity markets: both NASDAQ and S&P 500 hit new highs yesterday, and it looks like the markets could hit a new high today. 

Chip shortage: if the president's not worried, I'm not worried. LOL. From twitter:

Markets; three-day win streak for the Dow? The Dow opens higher and is 0.7% away from a new all-time high. Let's see: 35,367 x 1.007 = 35,615.