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INTERACTIVE BROKERS

 Warm-Up

- Back from Vacation - refreshed?

- Fun with Coldplay!

- Sugar in the news....

- The REAL running of the bulls - bad things happen

Markets

- Earnings Season is here - about to get some big results this week

- Some earnings to discuss

- A quick look at how indices and sectors are doing

- Markets react to Trump/Fed comments

- YUGE deal with Japan

Market Update

Top to Bottom in - Fed - April (2 Months)

Bottom to Recovery of Loss -  (2 months)

Now overshot and climbing to new ATH

DJIA up 4.8%

SP500 Up 7.69%

NASDAQ up 9%

Bitcoin Up 24%

Emerging Markets up 24%

USD down 10%

Gold up 24%

Copper up 35%

Small Caps up 0.95%

Apple DOWN 14%

YTD Sectors

Staring off: Will the TARIFFS actually go into play on August 1st, 2025???

What to do?

- Here we go again...

- I heard Adam and Tina coming to Florida next week and I have not heard from them....

-- Now maybe it is nowhere near me - Florida is a big state... (Am I being too sensitive?)

- If JCD came to FLA - I would think you would call me.... right?

Lessons

- Astronomer, the tech company that found itself launched into the public eye after its CEO Andy Byron was spotted on a Jumbotron video at a Coldplay concert last embracing an employee, announced that Byron has been placed on leave.

- Astronomer’s cofounder and chief product officer Pete DeJoy is now serving as interim CEO, the company said in a statement Friday night.

- “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,” the statement said in part, adding that the company’s board of directors “has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.”

- PEOPLE - think before you do stupid things!

NETFLIX Earnings

- Netflix posted second-quarter revenue growth of 16% on Thursday after the closing bell.

- The company raised its full-year revenue guidance, citing “healthy” member growth and ad sales.

- Netflix reported revenue of $11.08 billion for the second quarter, higher than Wall Street’s estimates of $11.07 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

-Stock was sold off after - priced to perfection

- Netflix’s higher forecast reflects the weakening of the U.S. dollar compared with other currencies as well as “healthy” member growth and ad sales, the company said in a statement. (What happened to constant currency?????)

- Off 8% this month, Up 36% YTD

Impressive

- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Thursday reported a near 61% year-on-year rise in second-quarter profit, hitting a record high and beating estimates, as demand for artificial intelligence chips stayed strong.

- The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer forecast third-quarter revenue between $31.8 billion and $33.0 billion — a 38% year-over-year increase and 8% higher from the prior quarter at the midpoint.

- - Revenue: 933.80 billion new Taiwan dollars ($31.7 billion), vs. NT$931.24 billion expected

- - Net income: NT$398.27 billion, vs. NT$377.86 billion

On the Other Hand

- ASML warned of the possibility of no growth in 2026, even as it beat top and bottom line expectations for the second quarter.

- ASML’s guidance for the current quarter missed expectations while it narrowed its own forecast for the rest of the year.

- Shares of the firm ended the day 11.4% lower after the report

-  ASML is the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, which are essential for producing cutting-edge semiconductor chips. These machines are used by top chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel to fabricate chips with features as small as a few nanometers

JAPAN DEAL

- We have a huge deal - no specifics but really big

- 15% tariffs on goods

- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday stateside announced that he had made the “largest Deal ever” with Japan, that involves “reciprocal” tariffs of 15% on the country’s exports to the U.S.

- In a post on Truth Social, Trump also said that Japan will invest $550 billion into the United States, adding that the U.S. will “receive 90% of the Profits.”

OpenIA and Google

- OpenAI said Wednesday that it expects to use Google’s cloud infrastructure for its popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence assistant.

- The reach for additional capacity aligns with OpenAI’s desire for more computing power to meet heavy demand after initially relying exclusively on Microsoft

for cloud capacity. The two companies’ relations have evolved since then, with Microsoft naming OpenAI as a competitor last year.

-- Theory - Google (struggling to maintain its existence in a post-search world) gave them a really "competitive" pricing to win this account - hoping others will follow

EVEN MORE~!

- OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge Alphabet’s market-dominating Google Chrome.

- The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks, three of the people said, and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web. It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google’s success: user data.

Trial Balloon

- Comments that Trump will "FIRE" Powell last week sparked a quick sell-off in stocks and bonds. (A key Trump advisor made those comments)

- But all that was reversed within an hour as Trump said that was not true

- Stories about potential fraud charges due to cost overruns with refurb of the Fed's office building. (Cost now $2.5 Billion!)

- DID SOME DIGGING: Once construction began, the general contractor came across unexpected asbestos in the building, toxic soil contamination and a higher-than-expected water table, the Journal said.

- Inflation was a problem, too. Budget documents released at the end of last year showed “significant increases” in the cost of steel, cement, wood and other materials that “far exceed standard cost escalations,” the Journal reported.

- There were also changes to the scope - the agency added high-cost below-ground square footage to its office building adjacent to its historic headquarters to offset space it lost after the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts asked it to nix plans for a five-story tower addition.

Fed Push-back

- Chairman Jerome Powell and the central bank is quietly pushing back with a new “Frequently Asked Questions” page on its website defending the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project.

-  The project aims to modernize the Federal Reserve’s campus by renovating three buildings overlooking the National Mall and adding a visitors center.

- “It involves a complete overhaul and modernization that preserves two historic buildings that have not been comprehensively renovated since their construction in the 1930s,” according to the Fed’s web page, which went up one day after Vought’s remarks on how the Fed was mismanaging the project.

AI Headway - Finance

- Anthropic on Tuesday announced Claude tools for financial services as part of the artificial intelligence startup’s latest attempt to court enterpris