Off The Blog For Awhile -- June 24, 2024

Locator: 48033INV. 

Not on my bingo card this morning.

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Best Performing Sector

Energy.

Others:

• AMGN up 40% in one year; up $7 today, over 2%.
• BRK-B: up over 1% today; up $5 today.
  

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INTC: The Darling Of Wall Street

This is why I feel strongly that "chips" are not a commodity. 

Most other "chip" stocks are up today.

Micron is not a "chip" stock but is generally lumped in with Nvidia, AMD, and Quacomm. MU has doubled in the past year.

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CNBC "Half-Time Report"

Today's market takes one panel member -- Joe -- back to 1996. 

The panel member must have picked "1996" for a reason.

One may want to look aback at 1996. Link here.

So, the question becomes, what was going on in the US economy just prior to 1996 -- so let's look, 1990 - 1995, the five years leading to the explosive growth in 1996:

The "Half-Time Report" remains the best one hour each day for investors, and maybe traders. All we had decades ago was Louis Rukeyser, and this CNBC offering easily beats Rukeyser. The main difference  Rukeyser and Scott Wapner shows differed: the Rukeyser opened with a 15-minute monologue recapping the previous week; Wapner has a cold open -- immediately begins asking panelists about the general market and individual equities. 

Today, two of the panelists are so bullish they almost have horns (good); one remains so incredibly bearish / prudent / concerned, his bearish fur is practically covering his eyes (and his vision). The fourth panelist: quiet, seems to simply be going with the flow, not adding much to the discussion. 

Wow, wow, wow -- the most negative panelist showed his hand. He mentioned "M4" and has now revealed that he recently bought more AAPL expecting a new upgrade cycle. The panelist mentioned that he visited an Apple store over the weekend and there was a waiting line for the iPad. Apple sales staff said sales of iPads have taken off, something some have never seen before, others have to go back a long time to remember the excitement over iPads. 

Reminder: only the iPads -- of all Apple's hardware -- is getting the M4. And only the high-end (highest margin) iPads have the M4. 

M1 was revolutionary; M2 and M3 evolutionary and not very; M4 is again revolutionary and it appears M4 might have been pushed out a year ahead of schedule so as not to be lapped by MSFT /AI 

It would be interesting to know what Apple employee came up with "Apple Intelligence" for AI. LOL. 

By the way, a bit of digression: except for marketing purposes, Apple's laptops and desktops don't need the M4, and the iPhone uses A-series chips, not M-series chips. So it makes sense that only the iPad is getting the M4. I've explained why earlier. I've not seen that explanation anywhere else.

Joe mentions: FANG, "anchored/backed" by XOM; hoping DVN finally does something.

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Disclaimer Briefly Reminder

• I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
• See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 
• 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.
• Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.