Intel’s record drop leads a cascade in chip names with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq seeing their worst session since June, while defensive buying gave the Consumer Staples ETF its best month on record.
Answering readers’ questions about the bonds and Nasdaq.
And Meta ($META) got what, about four weeks out of it, and they spent $500 billion and gave it away for free?! This is the economics of AI to a T:
Meanwhile:
And From September 23:
BY DOUG KASS · Sep 23, 2026, 7:35 AM EDT
“Muse personal AI agent is free to use with a generous weekly usage limit (such as up to 100 million tokens per week), though paid subscription tiers are available if you need higher usage capacity.”
– From AI
### Does Anyone Do Their Homework Anymore?
Not that I am or have been trying to call the stocks, because that is a fool’s errand these days, especially in these types of mania-driven markets. But it is fun to occasionally comment on the markets relative to the underlying fundamentals and business issues.
Monday and Tuesday were a combination of a gamma squeeze aided and abetted by Facebook’s Muse announcement.
For those that don’t know, Muse is Facebook’s personal assistant app, a theoretical AI agent, that made it to the top of the app stores download list, helping to inspire the gamma squeeze rip of the last two days.
Why did it make it to the top of the list? Because it is both new and FREE! (I don’t recall a single person in the business media saying this!)
Hundreds of billions of investment, and this is what they have to show for it? A free, largely non-differentiated personal assistant app that Amazon ($AMZN) has already cut off from shopping its site? And an app, that after the novelty factor wears off, will probably not be used all that much and likely never generate any economics, because it is free and of limited real utility and effectiveness. Guess what, people actually like shopping themselves, that is why they do it!
Heck, even Angry Birds costs money (and generates economics).
My guess, this thing goes the way of the Metaverse and Threads.
If any thing speaks volumes about AI, not sure if it is this, or it is OpenAI spending $22.5 million of compute to win a $1 million prize and needing to cheat along the way to even do that!
Coincidentally per prior on Muse, I just saw these.
The reference to Amazon is their theoretical no human convenience stores where AI was supposed to figure out everything you put in your basket. Turns out they had humans in India watching people on cameras. End of day, none of it ended up working, it lost too much money, and they shut all the stores anyway. Same for McDonald’s ($MCD) automated AI ordering system, where “no onions” seemed problematic for the AI to get right. I guess I was too optimistic, hundreds of billions of investment, and Meta ($META) still needs the humans too, because the AI still does not work.
Trillions of dollars of market cap added across the board due to this? And PS, Meta already paid for the junk they have in place to do this. They would have been better off buying offshore call centers for pennies on the dollar. Incidentally, that is one more thing AI was supposed to replace, but the opposite is happening, because it turns out Gen AI is multiples more expensive than cheap offshore labor.
Positions: Short NVDA S
Nvidia, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq Composite are breaking out in unison.
During a volatile week, we updated the Portfolio’s shopping list, and locked in a sizable tech gain.
Here are our thoughts on the market, our shopping list, Paccar, and a potential new name.
Cintas ($CTAS) price target raised to $222 from $214 at Baird
Okta ($OKTA) price target raised to $215 from $180 at BarclaysPaychex price target lowered to $113 from $118 at BMO CapitalMcDonald’s price target lowered to $310 from $335 at BMO CapitalNebius upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at BNP Paribas
Okta price target raised to $220 from $200 at BofA
McDonald’s ($MCD) price target lowered to $295 from $350 at BTIGWorthington price target raised to $75 from $67 at CanaccordMeta Platforms price target raised to $885 from $770 at Citizens
Okta price target raised to $235 from $190 at DA DavidsonOkta price target raised to $240 from $185 at Evercore ISIMcDonald’s price target lowered to $300 from $320 at Evercore ISILowe’s downgraded to Hold from Buy at Gordon HaskettOkta price target raised to $227 from $188 at GuggenheimDollar General upgraded to Buy at HSBC on recovery progressOkta price target raised to $240 from $200 at Jefferies
Meta Platforms ($META) price target raised to $920 from $820 at JPMorgan
Carnival ($CCL) price target lowered to $39 from $43 at JPMorganMcDonald’s price target lowered to $260 from $280 at JPMorganTanger downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan
CoreWeave ($CRWV) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorganOkta price target raised to $227 from $190 at Oppenheimer
Meta Platforms price target raised to $860 from $650 at Raymond James
Positions: None
A jump in yields to fresh multi-year highs cascaded through markets Wednesday.
“Muse personal AI agent is free to use with a generous weekly usage limit (such as up to 100 million tokens per week), though paid subscription tiers are available if you need higher usage capacity.”
– From AI
Not that I am or have been trying to call the stocks, because that is a fool’s errand these days, especially in these types of mania-driven markets. But it is fun to occasionally comment on the markets relative to the underlying fundamentals and business issues.
Monday and Tuesday were a combination of a gamma squeeze aided and abetted by Facebook’s Muse announcement.
For those that don’t know, Muse is Facebook’s personal assistant app, a theoretical AI agent, that made it to the top of the app stores download list, helping to inspire the gamma squeeze rip of the last two days.
Why did it make it to the top of the list? Because it is both new and FREE! (I don’t recall a single person in the business media saying this!)
Hundreds of billions of investment, and this is what they have to show for it? A free, largely non-differentiated personal assistant app that Amazon ($AMZN) has already cut off from shopping its site? And an app, that after the novelty factor wears off, will probably not be used all that much and likely never generate any economics, because it is free and of limited real utility and effectiveness. Guess what, people actually like shopping themselves, that is why they do it!
Heck, even Angry Birds costs money (and generates economics).
My guess, this thing goes the way of the Metaverse and Threads.
If any thing speaks volumes about AI, not sure if it is this, or it is OpenAI spending $22.5 million of compute to win a $1 million prize and needing to cheat along the way to even do that!
Coincidentally per prior on Muse, I just saw these.
The reference to Amazon is their theoretical no human convenience stores where AI was supposed to figure out everything you put in your basket. Turns out they had humans in India watching people on cameras. End of day, none of it ended up working, it lost too much money, and they shut all the stores anyway. Same for McDonald’s ($MCD) automated AI ordering system, where “no onions” seemed problematic for the AI to get right. I guess I was too optimistic, hundreds of billions of investment, and Meta ($META) still needs the humans too, because the AI still does not work.
Trillions of dollars of market cap added across the board due to this? And PS, Meta already paid for the junk they have in place to do this. They would have been better off buying offshore call centers for pennies on the dollar. Incidentally, that is one more thing AI was supposed to replace, but the opposite is happening, because it turns out Gen AI is multiples more expensive than cheap offshore labor.
Position: None
Ahead of a big China meeting, and what could be a meeting with Iran’s leadership, let’s see why clouds appear to be parting over Wall St.
