Alright my friends, once again thanks for letting me share my thoughts and musings in the Diary and a big salute the editors who help make it look easy.
Your regular ringmaster, Dougie Kass, is back tomorrow and I suspect that following developments in the last 24 hours, he’ll have a lot to say and ample wisdom to share.
See you around these parts down the road.
CV
Position: None
Following its mid-September warning that rising fuel and driver-related costs would pressure near-term profitability, I’ll be very interested in what JB Hunt ($JBHT) has to say about those pressures as it issues its guidance for the current quarter.
While diesel prices have ebbed lower from their September 22 high of $6.5276 per gallon per data from AAA, the current average price of $6.3173 is still up significantly compared to $3.65 this time last year.
I’ll also be interested in what JB Hunt has to say about capex spending for its truck fleet, especially given the forthcoming EPA emission mandate that will increase the cost per truck.
Position: None
TheStreet Pro Portfolio picked up more shares of Applied Materials ($AMAT) and then a short while ago we did the same with Axon ($AXON). We also cleaned up the Portfolio’s Bullpen, adding three new positions and kicked four to the curb.
Position: TheStreet Pro Portfolio is long AMAT and AXON
The National Retail Federation (NRF) now sees U.S. holiday sales growth accelerating to 4.2% this year. Sales during November and December are projected to rise 4.2% to $1.013 trillion, compared with a 3.1% increase to $972 billion last year.
NRF expects retailers to hire between 325,000 and 375,000 seasonal workers, in line with last year’s estimated 356,000 seasonal jobs.
Position: None
Time Magazine, yes that Time, which as I know first hand still has some very relevant articles given the Signals alerts we share over at the Pro Portfolio, is running a very long piece today on new Apple ($AAPL) CEO John Ternus.
Whether you love it, hate it, own it, or don’t, you have to recognize Apple’s place in the technology landscape and its weighting in the S&P 500. For those reasons alone, you may want to more than skim this:
John Ternus Is Engineering a New Era for Apple
Position: The Pro Portfolio is long AAPL
Reuters is reporting that in a letter to CEO Dario Amodei, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine urged Anthropic to delay its U.S. IPO until it addresses concerns about safety, governance and the pace of development.
As for why the NYC Comptroller speaking up is something to pay attention to… how about because the position oversees the city’s finances, manages its pension funds and acts as a watchdog over public spending and financial practices. That means it oversees ~ $325 billion in assets.
So far, Anthropic has yet to respond but as it gets ready for its IPO roadshow in less than month, no doubt the comptroller’s letter will come up during Q&A sessions, if not sooner.
For us over at the Pro Portfolio, our position in Morgan Stanely ($MS), lead underwriter of the offering, means we will be tracking the timing and ultimate size of the offering very closely. We’ll also be watching to see if others follow in the NYC comptroller’s footsteps.
Position: The Pro Portfolio is long MS
It’s being reported that Apple ($AAPL) and Meta ($META) are collaborating to let developers run Meta’s Muse Spark Open AI model locally on high-end Mac computers. This is, if I have the data right, their first public partnership in nearly 10 years.
For now it appears the relationship is centered on Apple’s Mac Studio computers, but it’s likely to spur questions as to whether the two may be talking about Meta’s Muse helping power Apple’s Apple Intelligence and Siri AI.
Such a happening would go a long way in helping folks overcome privacy concerns when it comes to Meta.
Position: The Pro Portfolio is long AAPL, META.
It is that time of the day where one refuels for the back half of the trading day. Here’s a short list for some of the reading I’ll be doing as put my nosh on:
CoreWeave Credit Risk Hits Record, Pricing 60% Odds of Default
Nvidia CEO Says There’s No Need to Backstop Troubled CoreWeave
Amazon introduces 2 new AI products from Bee: Bee Frontier and Bee Eclipse
Google’s Universal Cart shopping tool launches in the US
Homeownership Drifts Further Out of Reach as Mortgage Rates Rise
Position: The Pro Portfolio is long AMZN, GOOGL, NVDA.
As we approach the halfway mark for today’s trading, let’s take another look at those S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 heat maps courtesy of our sister site, TheFly:
Position: None
Some interesting thoughts and context on the AI and data center build out from Capital Current:
In Q2 2026, the Bureau of Economic Analysis recorded $752 billion in annualized investment in information-processing equipment and data centers. Residential investment came in at $748 billion. Adam Shapiro, vice president at the San Francisco Fed, posted the chart and called it simply: “The AI investment boom is massive.”
A four-billion-dollar gap. Thin. But the lines crossed. And they’re moving apart.
Data center construction spending hit a record annualized rate of $75.2 billion in July. That is 57% higher than a year ago. Year-to-date starts through June reached $81.5 billion, already topping the full-year 2025 total. Housing, meanwhile, sits 18% below its 2021 peak.
Rystad expects 2026 to go further. Data center investment is on pace to match the entire oil and gas value chain this year. A sector that barely appeared in BEA data five years ago now moves more capital than the industry that powered the twentieth century.
Where is Capital Current going with this?
Because every server rack draws power. A house needs 1.2 kilowatts on average. A high-density AI rack needs 100. The capital goes into chips. The chips need a grid. And the grid takes a decade to build.
That final comment keeps us bullish on the Pro Portfolio’s position in Eaton ($ETN), and it also explains some of the nuclear power deals being inked by some of the hyperscalers and others. With the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF ($NLR) knocking on an oversold condition like it did back in mid-July, it may be time to put it back in the Pro Portfolio’s Bullpen.
Position: TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long ETN
