BRK-B -- Chart Of The Day -- July 10, 2025

Locator: 48710WARREN.

On another huge day for the Dow. Dow up 245. S&P 500 up another 15 points.

Something's gotta give.

Either the market.

Or BRK.

See this post.

Food Stamps -- The Book Page -- July 10, 2025

Locator: 48709ARCHIVES.

Food stamps: Trump cuts hurt "average" families. "Average family" could lose $146 / month. Wow, how much is the "average family" getting now?"  Link here.

Food stamps: years ago, my son-in-law separated from a high-paying job in the US Navy and went to get his MBA at Harvard University. Our daughter was taking an overnight low-paying job as an new entry-level nurse. They were living on almost nothing. 

They applied for food stamps, a godsend at the time. Two years later, he was now being paid a huge salary. Our daughter called the "food stamp" people to say that they no longer met the requirement for food stamps and needed to be removed from the program. The food stamp representative told my daughter they would leave her on the program for the next year or so. It was easier for everyone all around to leave her on the program than to remove her now and then maybe have to re-instate her later if financial conditions changed. So, there you have it. 

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The Book Page

Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire, Eckart Frahm, c. 2023. Notes are here.

Bottom of page 87: 

Ashurnasirpal I expressed his desperation in a prayer to the goddess Ishtar of Ninevah, in which he lamented:

You have covered me with sickness. Why am I at death's door? ....

To be sure, to some extent Ashurnasipal's grievances may have been clichés. Mesopotamian appeals to the gods often followed the unspoken rule tht ony the squeaky wheel get the grease.

When I first read that, I immediately thought about what the governor of North Carolina had said during his interview on CNBC earlier this morning, asking for more help from Washington (DC).

Americans are like the Assyrians with regard to their problems. The Assyrians blamed the gods, and then appealed to those very same gods for help. The Assyrians refused to take responsibility for their own actions and then lamented that the gods were not helping them in their time(s) of crisis, often of their own making.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and the governor of North Carolina -- the #1 state for business climate -- is lamenting that things could be better, that the state now faces pockets of crisis (mostly of the state's own making -- like expansion of Medicaid) and the governor is appealing to the gods in Washington (DC) to come to his aid. 

Human beings have simply replaced one god, in this case Ishtar, with other gods, like the trinity Jeffries-Schumer-Boasberg. 

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Word For The Day

Paradise.

Also from the same source as above. Page 98.

Middle East.

Assyria.

879 BC: king moves capital from Ashur to Cahal. This is a huge deal.

A canal was dug from the Upper Zab (tributary of the Tigris) to irrigate a luscious park with numerous exotic plants, including beautiful pomegranates (which intrigued me every summer growing up in Williston, ND).

"Streams of water (luminous) as the stars of heaven" flowed into the "pleasure garden," the earliest known of the many palatial parks and gardens that would be come central features of the imperial landscapes of the Middle East -- from the paridaida of the Persian kings in Pasargadae and Persepolis (from which the word "paradise" derives) to the palace gardens of the Abbasids in medieval Baghdad and Samarra. The tradition would also spread eastward to India and westward to Rome.

The word, and particularly the spelling, paridaida reminds me much of Spanish. Thank you, Duolingo. I now have a 1,751-day streak over on Duolingo, learning Spanish. That equals 4.7973 years of not missing one day of practicing Spanish on Duolingo. It's a free app, but I pay the annual fee to avoid the ads. It's well worth it. I can't remember if it's $89 or $129 but I think it's $89. The piano lesson app I have for Sophia is $129, I believe.  

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"The Age Of Magnates" and China

From AI:

In Assyrian history, the "Age of Magnates" refers to a period of internal power struggles and fragmentation within the Neo-Assyrian Empire, specifically from the late 9th to mid-8th centuries BCE. During this time, powerful officials and generals, known as magnates, vied for influence with the Assyrian kings, leading to a weakening of central authority. This era ended with the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, who restored strong royal power.

When you read this section in the book on Assyria, it sounds a lot like what might be going on China under Xi right now. This could have happened in Russia/Putin but somehow Putin managed to maintain control.

Program Announcement -- If The Market Opens In The Green, I Will Quit Blogging Until Later Today -- July 10, 2025

Locator: 48708MARKET.

Amazon Prime Days: best deals -- according to TNYT. Link here. I found this site un-useful. 

It's much better to go directly to Amazon.com and then begin surfing. Amazon breaks it out very, very nicely. And, no, despite what TNYT says, most of the "prime day" deals on Amazon do NOT stink. Wow, sounds like sour grapes. I wonder if TNYT goes on sale (a yearly subscription) on Amazon Prime Days. LOL.

The writer of this NYT article on Amazon's Prime Days comes across as a spoiled brat who isn't a Prime member, and doesn't really know how to surf Amazon efficiently. But then that's just me.

By they way, for the past twenty years, maybe longer, my favorite company was Apple. No longer. Amazon is now my favorite company with regard to shopping. With regard to investing, I'm still on the fence, but I no longer add to my Apple position (I'm so overweighted in AAPL) but I add regularly to AMZN in very small increments (mostly because there are so many opportunities (and charities) competing for my dollars.

If you think inflation is only going to get worse, and the US is going to implode due to the deficit, highly recommend that you "distribute" your wealth now to extended family members and elementary school teachers. Your dollars will go further now than they will in the future.

Amazon Prime Days: every school year and throughout the school year I buy classroom supplies for the school Sophia attends and give cash gifts to some of the teachers as the year progresses and they run out of supplies. Right now, Amazon is a big, big help. One of the big purchases yesterday was three boxes of #2 pencils, 150 in each box. I was alerted to the need for these pencils last year during state testing exams.

Next time you're buying #2 pencils, compare what you're paying to 6.7 cents / pencil.

Next time you're buying AA batteries, compare what you are paying to 25 cents / battery. Generally speaking, the best price I can find for AA and AAA batteries: 50 cents / battery. These may not last as long as some other brand name batteries, but my hunch no one will ever know / no one will ever notice.

Another tease: whether you love him or hate him -- I don't find a lot of folks on the fence, President Trump is most transformational president we've had since FDR (?). I can't imagine what it would be like with another Obama-Hillary-Bernie-Jill-Karine administration. Absolutely no way. 

Pre-market:

• AMD: up almost 4%.
• NVDA: up 1%.
• ORCL: ex-dividend today and up 1.5%.
• AVGO: up nearly a percent.
• PLTR: flat; tea leaves -- will turn green today.
• AAPL: down a bit; tea leaves -- disarray, chaotic, no pattern with these tea leaves
• MP: up 64%.
• AMZN: flat; tea leaves -- will turn green today.

Good luck to everyone.

I'm headed out to the pool -- 8:26 a.m. CT -- Thursday.

Sophia and I will be seeing the new Superman movie tonight -- in a special preview, before it launches nationwide tomorrow. No trailers. Will start immediately when the house lights go dim.

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TSM

Breaking.

Link here.

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AMZN

NFL commissioner on CNBC this morning. Long segment on Amazon's Thursday Night Football. Huge success.

Like AAPL, it's getting harder and harder to figure out what business sector Amazon is in.

Retail? Logistics? Tech? The cloud? Advertising? Entertainment? 

Disclaimer
Brief Reminder 

 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.
• I've now added Oracle to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Oracle.
  
• Longer version here.  

Chart Of The Day -- Word Of The Day -- Magnets -- July 10, 2025

Locator: 48707RAREEARTH.

Autos: before we get started, a teaser: as our own cars get much, much older, and we need to replace them, and our grandchildren are growing older and they need cars, my wife and I have bought three new cars this year (so far). 

I doubt we will be buying a fourth before the year is out, but it's possible. There's always more to learn. I think every reader agrees with me that high school students need to take a financial course (or courses). One of those sessions would be on buying cars. I might talk about that later.

Now, back to regular programming.

Pentagon: from what I can tell, and based on what ChatGPT told me, this is the first time the Pentagon has invested directly into a publicly-traded company. I could be wrong; I don't know but this seems very interesting.

Rare earth: on the blog last month. This was so incredibly predictable. Hope everyone is paying attention. Could surge 60% today.

So many story lines. 

Several favorite headlines in this screenshot! My favorite: Jeffries downgrades MP. Okay.

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Re-Posting

From last month: 

Locator: 48741ARCHIVES.

Some weeks ago, maybe months ago, I thought about the following, and mentioned it once or twice on the blog. I'm reminded of it again, today, watching CNBC.

I recently mentioned "folks (who are) afraid to get rich. Really rich."

An analyst for one of the large Wall Street investment firms was arguing her case on CNBC: she's still not ready to recommend that folks put new money into the market. She said there were just too many unknowns. 

She really came across as someone who was afraid to get rich.

I wouldn't want her as my financial advisor.

Bears and bulls. 

Watching the market for the past month, it comes back to this for me: if you aren't ready to invest now, when will you ever be ready to invest? 

My audience: those with a rolling 30-year investment horizon. "Rolling"? It means that every day, the horizon begins another 30-year investment period.

 MP Materials. A "new one" that pops up on my radar screen. From wiki:

MP Materials Corp. is an American rare-earth materials company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.

MP Materials owns and operates the Mountain Pass mine, the only operating rare earth mine and processing facility in the United States.

MP Materials focuses its production on Neodymium-Praseodymium (NdPr), a rare earth material used in high-strength permanent magnets that power the traction motors found in electric vehicles, robotics, wind turbines, drones and other advanced motion technologies.

MP Materials is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "MP." As of December 2021, JHL Capital Group, QVT Financial and CEO James Litinsky were the company's three largest shareholders, with about 7.7% of the company owned by Shenghe Resources, a Chinese company partly owned by the country's Ministry of Natural Resources.

Has anyone, lately, heard of magnets? Asking for a friend.

 

Disclaimer
Brief Reminder 

 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.
• I've now added Oracle to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Oracle.
  
• Longer version here.  
  

As AI Boom ACCELERATES -- July 10, 2025

Locator: 48706AWS.

AMD: up 2.7% in pre-market trading; up $3.68/ share in pre-market trading. 

It's not just "a" boom. It's a boom that's accelerating.

Tech: link here. And here.

I missed the best part of that story.  CNBC, link here: