DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

Love the Show? Then how about a Donation?

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><input title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" alt="Donate" name="submit" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" type="image" />

</form>

Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign...

Warm-Up

- Big - Run - Crypto Pops and Drops

- Stacking the Admin with $$$ Peeps

- Baseball Deal

- Equifax Class Action - Finally a payout?

Markets

- Employment Report

- This week's CPI and PPI Data

- Santa Rally - Could be just be a couple weeks away

- - Trump Limericks (AI)

ANNOUNCING the CTP Contestants for 2024 CTP Cup

Michael Bowling

Kirk Saathoff

Eric Harvey

Chad Laajala

Tim Dewey

Paul Kinder

Anson Brady (2023 CTP Cup Winner)

---Emails have gone out...

Regarding AMD

- BofA Securities downgraded Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to Neutral from Buy, lower CY25/26 pf-EPS by 6%/8%ta $4.43/55.51, about -13%/-23% below consensus 55.09/57.11. Two factors:

1) Higher competitive risks in Al against best-of-breed NVDA's dominance, and growing cloud preference for custom chips from MRVL/AVGO. limiting AMD's market share gain potential, and

2) Potential for 1H'25E PC processor correction, after ~4O% HoH surge in AMD's 2H'24E client PC sales.  Shares are down 3%.

Oracle Earnings

- Oracle (ORCL -8%) is lower following its Q2 (Nov) earnings report last night.

- The company reported a slight EPS miss, its second miss in the past three quarters.

- Revenue rose 8.6% yr/yr to $14.06 bln, but that was also a bit light of analyst expectations.

- The Q3 (Feb) adjusted EPS guidance of $1.47-1.51 was also lower than expected.

- Oracle guided to Q3 revs of +7-9% (+9-11% CC), which we compute as $14.21-14.48 bln, which was also light, partly due to FX.

Google Chip

- Releases the Willow quantum computing chip

- Google has unveiled a new chip which it claims takes five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world's fastest super computers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete.

- However experts say Willow is, for now, a largely experimental device, meaning a quantum computer powerful enough to solve a wide range of real-world problems is still years - and billions of dollars - away.

MLB Deal

- The Mets on Sunday agreed to sign Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract, multiple sources said, by far the largest pact in Major League Baseball history.

- The deal, which the Mets have not confirmed because it’s pending a physical, contains a $75 million signing bonus, an opt-out after five seasons and no deferred money.

- The Mets will have the ability to void Soto’s opt-out clause after the 2029 season if they boost the average annual value of the final 10 years of his deal from $51 million to $55 million, according to a source.

- In that case, the overall deal would be for 15 years and $805 million

- Right and Left Fielder - with .288 Batting average

- In 2024, he hit 41 homers and had 129 walks. It was his fourth season with at least 25 home runs and 125 walks. That's fourth-most in MLB history, behind only Barry Bonds (10 such seasons), Babe Ruth (10) and Ted Williams (eight).

China - Back in the Spotlight

- Disinflation again and profits slowing - China's inflation drops

- China's producer price index declined for the 26th month. Producer inflation fell by 2.5% year on year in November...

- Sunday announcement - China's leaders on Monday pledged "more proactive" fiscal measures and "moderately" looser monetary policy next year to boost domestic consumption, according to an official readout of a key policy meeting that outlined upcoming economic priorities.

Hing Kong markets flying again and several stocks on the move

- PDD   11%   NIO  15%   FUTU 23%   NTES 11%   BABA 8.5%   BIDU  9.6%

Just in...(Started in 2017)

- The Equifax Data Breach Settlement Agreement says any remaining funds in the Consumer Restitution Fund will be distributed to Settlement Class Members with valid claims.

- You have a valid claim and are eligible for an additional payment. It will be sent to you by electronic pre-paid card. (Email just arrived....)

Employment Report

- The latest employment data likely cemented another interest-rate reduction by the Federal Reserve later this month but did little to clarify the monetary-policy outlook for 2025.

- 4.2% Unemployment Rate

- 4.5% wage growth

- Better than though additions to the payrolls

- Overall, it looks like it was a reasonably good report - HOWEVER - some cracks beneath the surface with minority jobs

Jobs Report

Fed Meeting Dec 18th

- 89% probability of a 0.25% rate cut

- Fed has its back to the wall - markets are dictating

- No reason to believe that they need a cut, although the would not want to worry markets or surprise them in any way

- All reporting shows that they will do the cut, back off a little as to the amount of potential cuts coming in recognition of the fact that the economy is still running well

Trump Cabinet $$$$

- 11 picks are billionaires

- $340 billion total net worth

--- Big chunk is Musk

- Wealthiest administration in US History - by a long shot

-- 3 more billionaires in the works

- "CORRUPT ELITE" of Biden admin was only worth a total $118 Billion

Trump News (Get used to it)

- Now Trump says that he will not try to replace Jerome Powell

- On Meet The Press he said: "No, I don't think so. I don't see it,"

- "I think if I told him to [go], he would. But if I asked him to, he probably wouldn't," Trump told Welker.

Trump EV Action

- Donald Trump's transition team is considering canceling the U.S. Postal Service's contracts to electrify its delivery fleet, as part of a broader suite of executive orders targeting electric vehicles, according to three sources familiar with the plans.

--- WHY????

- Osh Kosh and Ford are the main providers of the EV trucks for the Postal Service.

---Multi Billion $$ contracts

Last One

- Trump aides contact Google, Meta, Snap over online drug sales

- President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has invited five major tech companies, including Google , Microsoft  and Meta Platforms to a meeting in mid-December about dealing with online sales of drugs

- This looks like non-prescription/illegal drug sales

Retail Sales - Roundup

- Final Tally - Record-breaking sales reported

- Amazon saw the strongest growth on Black Friday

- Americans spent roughly $10.8 billion online on Black Friday

- Shein, Temu also post strong results

UNH

- Interesting how this is all becoming a thing

--- Erupted into a real awakening about the health insurance industry

- NYPD at press conference says person of interest named Luigi Mangione is in custody for murder of UNH executive Brian Thompson

- Murder charges filed

Ti