DHUnplugged #709: Blubber Gorging

Shark Week (Market Style) - Whale Gorging - Big Teeth - Big Appetites Earnings season coming up Biden staying in the race (for now) Complacency nearing a tipping point. PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm Up - Shark Week - Whale Gorging - Big Teeth - Big Appetites - Earnings season coming up - Biden staying in the race - Market Moves - the inside track - NEW - ALL ABOUT BIDEN ISSSUES Market Update - Big Swings - Massive Rotation - Employment Report for June - Market Moves - the inside track - Big Box - down to a few Fed First - Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Q&A with Senate Banking Committee: The "likely next direction" of policy will be a loosening of policy; rate hike not likely Employment Reports - Private payroll growth edged lower in June, according to a report Wednesday from ADP that indicates a potential slowdown in the U.S. labor market. - Companies added 150,000 jobs for the month, below the upwardly revised 157,000 in May and the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 160,000. The total was the lowest monthly gain since January. - BLS Official saw Unemp rate tick up to 4.1% -Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 206,000 in June - Job gains occurred in government, health care, social assistance, and construction. The Inside Track Lowdown -- People asking  me "When will this end? It is crazy!" - This week we will be treated to CPI and PPI. - As it stands, Powell made comments after the close on July 3rd that they  were not satisfied with the rate of change related to inflation.  There is more work to be done he said. But, the markets don't really care about that - they see a cut in September and December. - The general direction of the markets - or path of least resistance appears to be up. - Investors are gorging themselves on AI related names. - The big boys (and girls) of the market are taking in big money - helping to keep markets buoyed. - - It has the look and feel of great white sharks in a ravenous feeding frenzy over a rotting whale corpse. - Full Disclosure - we hold a good number of these names in our core equity allocation. Microsoft, Nvidia, SMCI, Google (Alphabet), Meta (Facebook) and several more. - Monday moves - the DJIA was up big to start the day and at the lunchtime break was in the red. The money clearly flowed out of DJIA and into the NASDAQ100 again. So, this is how it will be for a while, or until something changes. And, that may very well be the next batch of earnings through the season that begins on this coming Friday with the major financial names. Ford - Ford truck sales, which includes pickups and vans, totaled 308,920 vehicles during the period, the company's best second-quarter performance for the category since 2019, Ford said. Sales in its F-Series totaled 199,463 vehicles. - Sales of Ford electric vehicles totaled 23,957 during the second quarter, up 61%. - The automaker said its EVs, in particular the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, are drawing new customers to the company. - Stock is stuck in a range Boeing - Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a fine of $243.6 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation into two 737 MAX fatal crashes, the government said in a court filing on Sunday. - The plea deal, which requires a judge's approval, would brand the planemaker a convicted felon in connection with crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia over a five-month period in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. - Smart - quick slap on the wrist and get it over with (for publicity sake) - As part of the deal, the planemaker agreed to spend at least $455 million over the next three years to...