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 alt="Donate" name="submit" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" type="image" />

</form>

Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Warm-Up

- Crypto pulling back

- REMINDER - NEW CTP  for Lithium Americas (LAC) stock!

- October - one of the toughest months

- Day traders - some good news

Markets

- New Tariffs announced - Drugs, trucks, kitchen cabinets

- Intel's new growth model

- Quantum stocks rallying

- Powell setting the stage

RYDER CUP - What a finish!

Friday Jobs Report

Labor Dept - may - or may not release jobs report Friday

- Fearing that a government shutdown will be problematic

- Convenient

US to take stake in Lithium Americas - Up 29%

- Where are we coming up with all of this $

Red October?

-9 of the 20 largest single-day drops in the Dow Jones occurred in October.

- 1907 Bank Panic

- 1929 Crash (Black Tuesday)

- 1987 Crash (Black Monday, -22.6% in one day)

- 2008 Financial Crisis (S&P 500 fell ~17% in October alone)

- Since 1950, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of ~0.91% in October

-Over the past 20 years, October has been relatively favorable, with average gains between 0.8% and 1.5% for the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq.

-October is 35% more volatile than the average month.

Saudi Arabia for the Win!

- Electronic Arts rallied on Friday following a report by the Wall Street Journal that the video game company is nearing a roughly $50 billion deal to go private.

- The deal would likely be the largest leverage buyout of all time, according to the Journal.

- Investors including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Silver Lake could announce the deal as soon as next week, the report said

- Also in n the TikTok Deal - what is up with that?

- Oh - Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners is another participating investor, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

On the Other hand

- Shares of CarMax fell to an all-time low on Thursday, as investors disposed of positions after disappointing second-quarter earnings results.

- This followed surprisingly disappointing financial and operating results, with retail used unit sales declining 5.4 percent, and comparable same-store sales decreasing 6.3 percent.

- Net income declined by 28.16 percent to $95.4 million from $132.8 million in the same period last year, while net sales and operating revenues dropped by 6 percent to $6.59 billion from $7.013 billion year-on-year.

- Carvana next or reason why KMX doing poorly?

Ponzi Accusations

- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is accusing the men who bought bankrupt chains RadioShack, Modell’s Sporting Goods, and Pier 1 Imports of running a Ponzi scheme that duped investors out of tens of millions of dollars.

- A complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday, alleges the co-founders of Miami-based Retail Ecommerce Ventures, Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez, together with the company's Chief Operating Officer Maya Burkenroad, raised approximately $112 million combined from hundreds of U.S. investors by selling investments in eight companies they created and controlled under Retail Ecommerce Ventures.

- Between April 2020 through Nov. 2022, they raised money by selling two types of investments. They sold unsecured notes that promised returns of up to 25% a year, and ownership shares that offered monthly payouts as high as 2%, according to the complaint.|

- To pay interest, dividends and maturing note payments, Mehr and Lopez resorted to using a combination of loans from outside lenders, merchant cash advances, money raised from new and existing investors, and transfers from other portfolio companies to cover obligations, the SEC said.

Pfizer Playing Ball

- President Donald Trump announced an agreement with Pfizer to voluntarily sell its medications at lower prices in the U.S., as his administration pushes to link the nation’s drug prices to cheaper prices paid abroad.

- Pfizer has agreed to take measures to lower U.S. drug prices, including selling its existing drugs to Medicaid patients at the lowest price offered in other developed nations on a website the administration is calling TrumpRx.gov.

- As part of the deal, Pfizer has also agreed to a three-year grace period during which the company’s products won’t face pharmaceutical-specific tariffs – as long as the drugmaker further invests in U.S. manufacturing.

TikTok

- ByteDance to retain ownership of TikTok's U.S. business operations, sources say

- Joint venture to handle U.S. user data and algorithm, sources say

- ByteDance to control revenue-generating operations like e-commerce and advertising, sources say

- Sources said the new U.S. TikTok would be divided into two companies. The joint venture that was announced by Trump will serve as the backend operations to the U.S. company and handle U.S. user data and algorithm. ByteDance is expected to be the single largest minority shareholder in the joint venture, sources said.|

- The new U.S. company will be valued at around $14 billion, Vice President JD Vance said. (Which everyone is asking how that number was arrived at and why so low)

Holy Economics

- GDP now expected to be between 3.8% and 3.9% in coming quarter (annualized)

- Home sales soar 20% to 3-year high

-- Sales of newly built homes rose a much larger-than-expected 20.5% in August compared with July, according to the U.S. Census.

- Sales were 15.4% higher than August 2024.

---That’s despite mortgage rates that are higher than they are today.

---The median price of a new home sold in August was $413,500, in increase of 1.9% year over year.

- Initial claims number last week came in much lower than anticipated at 218k

Powell Hinting

- Stocks overvalued?

-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell furthered valuation concerns , noting “equity prices are fairly highly valued.”

- Powell also signaled that the rate-cutting path wasn’t clear and that it was a “challenging situation.”

- Stocks sold off a bit during the week - but came buyers stepped in again

- He also said last week: weakness in the labor market is outweighing concerns about stubborn inflation, leading to a decision he backed to lower the central bank’s key interest rate last week. (setting up potential cuts and ignoring inflation pressures)

Government Shutdown..

- Didn't they have open ended budget and debt ceiling?

- Does it really matter anymore?

- Bill being pushed to end shutdowns (therefore Congress will never have to present a budget - formalized)

Quantum

- Last week...

- IonQ on Tuesday said it achieved a “significant quantum internet milestone,” leading shares 3% higher in afternoon trading and lifting quantum stocks in sympathy during the session.

- Shares of Rigetti Computing gained 10%, D-Wave Quantum added 6% and Quantum Computing rose 4%.

YTD: RGTI up 100%, IONQ up 65%, QUBT up 25%, QBTS up 218%

Intel

- Now Intel is asking Apple to make an investment...

- So the new growth model for Intel is begging?

Going Private

- Electronic Arts said it will be acquired by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners in an all-cash deal worth $55 billion.

- Shareholders of the maker of Battlefield, The Sims and the Madden NFL will receive $210 per share.

- Jared Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, is CEO of Affinity.

Interesting Development

- New tariffs - rate cut cover - moving ahead with more threats

- Late last week: Trump cites national security for new round of tariffs

- 100% duty on branded drugs waived if ground broken on US f