Locator: 51549CRAMER.
Tim Curry: age 80, dies.
BREAKING NEWS: META settles federal social media addiction trial with California AG, other state AGs. Holy mackeral. That was fast! Less than a week. Did the trial even start? META surges almost 5% pre-market. META ups $22 in pre-market.
- Details not yet known;
- suggests META did not want to go to trial and risk losing everything;
- AGs knew they had a relatively tough case to prove.
- META to pay $17.1 billion; shared among 47 states. Over ten years.
- for perspective, California's 2026 - 2027 spending calculated at $350 billion and absolutely NO deficit!
- in addition, an extra $1 billion to Texas. Wow!
- original payout? Some though $200 billion.
2Q26 GDP, second reading: 1.5% vs 1.5% forecast.
Other numbers (economy): really, really good. Another "goldilocks" economy.
July, 2026, inflation data: in line with expectations. First two analysts on CNBC seem to have accepted that 3% inflation is what it is and that will remain at this level. Too painful to try to move the rate to 2%. "Inflation might be okay at 3%; the problem is it's above the target of 2%." July consumer spending was up twice what was expected. With AI struggling, raising rates now -- watch out below.
INTC: has slipped well below $90. Never expected that. NVDA's earnings later this afternoon will be closely watched.
AAPL: opens up 87 cents today. A welcome surprise.
DOW opens up after macroeconomic data released.
BRKB: up a bit yesterday and up in futures today, again not by much. Well off 52-week high but, take out the brief highs and lows, and BRKB has been relatively flat the past year.
New asset class? Some analysts still support. A financial asset class is being built by Jensen Huang. Folks may want to discuss with Gemini the concept of a financial asset class.
- the asset: specifically AI chips (GPUs) and AI compute capacity, not tokens;
- mechanism: Wall Street is creating structured financial instruments, lease backstops, and asset-backed debt tied directly to physical chips and data center compute power;
- the analogy: prominent investors like Mark Cuban and Jeff Gundlac have noted that Wall Street is trying to treat silicon chips like a tradable commodity (akin to oil or gold), prompting major exchanges like the CME group to plan future contracts tracking GPU rental indices
- asset-backed debt: financial insitutions are issuing long-dated loans and bonds using physical AI chips as the underlying collateral
- One may want to use this prompt: one may recall that Larry Ellison bought a huge amount of compute (chiops) for which he was criticized but now it turns out that he can indeed rent them, even if they are seen by some as "old."
- In hindsight, one might argue that Larry Ellison was the first big investor to note this "new" financial asset class.
- Larry Ellison was absolutely the first major tech titan to aggressively treat AI compute as an investable infrastructure asset class, essentiall yproving the concept years before Wall Street formalized it.
- Again, not chips, but compute: capacity / chip x chip = compute. But that's a theoretical number, similar to "nameplate capacity" used by utilities. Compute is also affected by optimum wiring, optimum cooling, optimum power availability, etc. So, analysts must consider all these factors to determine "compute."
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Disclaimer
Briefly:
I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken. 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 something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything. 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 Bakken, US economy, and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM. Longer version here.
