Headlines -- November Inflation Report -- "Just Okay" -- December 12, 2023

Locator: 46283HEADLINES.

Personal investing, today:

• I've removed UBER from my "tech bucket." Replaced with ORCL. 
• I maintain only 20 different tickers in my new money positions
• gradually re-balancing my entire portfolio as I begin to very, very slow decrease by fossil fuel exposure
  
• will buy:
• AVGO, ORCL, WMT, XOM
• this is a change; I had planned to go all in with MSFT this month
  
• will sell:
• PFE: IRA RMD; inconsequential but I believe this is the last of my PFE holdings

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

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Headlines

Usual disclaimers apply:

• done quickly
• errors: typographical and content

Inflation numbers released at 7:30 a.m. CT for November, 2023:

• WSJ: "annual inflation cooled" 
• Barron's: market rising after numbers released
  
• CPI up 0.1% vs unchanged estimate
• ex food and energy: 0.3% vs 0.3% estimate
• energy down y/y
• on track for continued inflation dropping
  
• food and shelter: both up slightly 
• used car prices went back up -- a surprise
• real earnings, inflation-adjusted: robust November
  
• Core CPI y/y: 4% vs 4% estimate
  
• market surges immediately after numbers released but then fell back; still very "green." As we get closer to opening, numbers continue to drop.
  
• Treasuries: 2-year and 10-year down
• Steve Liesman:
• comments incorporated above
• JPow: "show me the progress." Hasn't been any.
  

Right now: market appears positive with regard to JPow's speech yet to come.

What will get the Fed to move: a weakening labor market.

• analysts on unemployment: 4% unemployment is the goalpost
• as long as unemployment remains in 4% range and not trending significantly higher / faster, as long as inflation not at 2%, Fed won't cut rates

On CNBC early this morning:

• JPow starting to lose his credibility; not that he isn't cutting rates, the fact that he avoids the issue:
• Apple to give "some concessions" to the EU; and,
• Ford's plans to cut F-150 Lightning production.
• demand not there; Phil LeBeau will spin this story 
• major reversal for Ford
• 2023 sales: 20,365 
• will defer $12 billion in EV investment next year and now pushing that out
• already talking about huge loss of EV interest over the next few years
• what next for RAM and GM?
• solution: hybrids (fake EVs)
• wow -- Phil seems to be getting it ... he still comes across as a spokesperson for the US auto industry -- but then again, that's must me
  

Harvard: board remains supportive of President Claudine Gay; vote is in; she stays.

• if one understands how liberal Harvard University is / has become, this is not surprising
• UPenn is / was in a completely different situation