Cleaning Up the Portfolio’s Bullpen
We’re adding three new contenders, and kicking four to the curb.
Is the Bottom Falling Out of the AI Trade?
We’re seeing equity valuations collapse for semiconductor stocks, and bond yields for CoreWeave soar to distressed levels. Is the AI bubble bursting?
Meet Apple CEO, John Ternus
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
Keep an Eye on This…
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
Hold the Phone! Apple Teams With… Meta?
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.
Leaning Into Energy Stocks as Midterm Elections Draw Near
I can’t predict the midterms, but I can see I was let down by Johnson & Johnson — and that energy stocks are surging.
Lunchtime Reading Menu
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.
The Heat Is On
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
Gasoline Fuels the Retail Sales Beat in September
Retail sales rose 0.8% versus a 0.3% estimate, but gas stations were over 70% of that gain while the GDP-linked control group missed and Census’s annual revision cut sales levels by about 4.5%.
Amid Rotation, I’m Adding to an Obscure Biotech and a Magnificent 7 Stock
Here’s my plan as AI stocks are sliding while money moves into the names that struggled for months, and biotech is leading the way.