Pump and Dump

Iran angst continues, as does some lingering AI fears

Jobless Claims were better than expected across the board, with the headline 212K vs. exp. 216K and Continuing Claims 1833K vs. exp. 1858K

The KC Fed Manufacturing was 5 vs. exp. 2 with Production and New Orders up.

Iran and the US will continue talking on Monday after no deal was reached in Geneva. Still no attacking, though many still expect something will happen over the next two weeks.

10Y Ts fell below a 4% yield after a good 7Y auction and with month-end providing a bid.

After being up 5% overnight, NFLX ended down -5%. What does it mean? I don’t know. I’d say it largely described the full range of option expectations and seemed to attack the final section of the market that hadn’t yet been hit in a selloff, semis and memory. I guess we can kill the South Korean Kospi market.

Welcome to the last trading day of February. I expect it won’t be missed by many, with the continued violent rotations.

Block (XYZ) was up 19% after firing 40% of staff in favor of AI, also causing more software (IGV) angst. Just a thought, maybe they shouldn’t have hired so aggressively post-covid in the first place? Remember when Dorsey’s last company, Twitter, got sold and Musk fired 80% of employees?

DELL was up 11% on strong earnings and guidance as AI server sales soared.

Apparently, Stripe isn’t considering Paypal (PYPL) despite claims they were, sending PYPL -4%.

After a long saga, Warner Brothers (WBD) decided the Paramount Skydance (PSKY) deal to buy the company was superior to the Netflix (NFLX) offer. This has PSKY up 9% after hours, WBD -2%, and NFLX up 8%. Since this competition started on 12/5, NFLX is -16%, PSKY is -16%, and WBD is up 10%, none of which includes activity since last night’s close. Thanks for playing!

META canceled its most advanced AI chip design as they struggle to compete with NVDA.

PPI and Chicago PMI, today.

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