Tariff juggling - just moving them around - no studies, no rationale

Big Moves - One of the worst Novembers since 2008

The Big Short - End of a Era?

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Warm-Up
- Last Few Days for IBIT CTP - Closing Price This Friday
- The Big Short - End of a Era?
- What is happening to Bitcoin?
- THC laws changing - interesting loophole closed

Markets
- Tariff juggling - just moving them around - no studies, no rationale
- Big Moves - One of the worst Novembers since 2008
- Hindenburg Omen
- Fed Losing Cred

WHY?
- If tariffs are not inflationary and this administration has brought down prices on groceries....
- President Trump signed an EO Friday lowering tariffs on beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, according to Bloomberg
- So , just shooting from the hip on all of this are we?
--- Seriously, where is the plan, where is the analysis, where are the results? Total horseshit

More Tariffs
- Switzerland and U.S. agree to trade deal; U.S. will lower tariffs to 15% from 39%; Swiss companies are planning to make direct investments in the USA amounting to $200 billion by the end of 2028
- Switzerland will reduce some import duties on US Imports
- For other US export interests, a solution was agreed that takes Switzerland's agricultural policy interests into account: under the agreement, Switzerland will grant the US duty-free bilateral tariff quotas on selected US export products: 500 tonnes for beef, 1,000 tonnes for bison meat and 1,500 tonnes for poultry meat.
- Furthermore, Swiss companies are planning to make direct investments in the USA amounting to $200 bln by the end of 2028.
- What did we accomplish here? - Just going back to what it was with a slightly higher tariff on Swiss goods than before...BECAUSE WE WERE GETTING KILLED WITH FOOD COSTS

Fed Update
- Markets no longer view December as a sure bet
- Lots of Fed speakers out with commentary that is hawkish
- Currently, there is a 46% chance of a rate cut by 0.25% - a month ago it was at 95%
- AND, they should not cut in the absence of all data (Stephan Miran looking for 0.50%, but he is a total tool)

More Horseshit!
- Former Federal Reserve Board Gov. Adriana Kugler broke the central bank’s rules regarding stock trading, according to a report released by the U.S. Government Ethics Office.
- Now we know why she abruptly resigned a few months ago
- That disclosure shows two kinds of violations of Fed rules regarding financial transactions by senior officials at the central bank: purchases of stocks of individual companies, as opposed to mutual funds; and purchases of securities during so-called “blackout periods” leading up to and after Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
- Oh - Supposedly her husband did it - but come on!
- Fed losing more credibility - this is not the first time....

StampFlation
- The Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission for Shipping Services price changes to take effect Jan. 18, 2026. The proposed adjustments were approved by the governors of USPS this week.
- The change would raise prices approximately 6.6 percent for Priority Mail service, 5.1 percent for Priority Mail Express service, 7.8 percent for USPS Ground Advantage and 6.0 percent for Parcel Select.

BIG
- Michael Burry, the investor whose successful bets against the U.S. housing market in 2008 were recounted in the movie "The Big Short," is closing his hedge fund, Scion Asset Management.
- In a letter to investors dated October 27, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Burry said he would liquidate the funds and return capital, "but for a small audit/tax holdback" by the end of the year.
- "My estimation of value in securities is not now, and has not been for some time, in sync with the markets," Burry said in the letter.
- Put on a big OPTIONS short on NVDA and PLTR
- We checked and his Registration expired.. Has about $155 million under management - not so much..
- He hinted that he will be back doing something and will announce on November 25th...

Softbank
- We know that they CUT all of their NVDA holdings
- Looking at the 13F, also cut ORCL
- New position in INTC
- Looking to raise significant cast to outlay to private companies over the next couple of months.
- Stock is up 120% YTD, DOWN 12% last week
- Did you know He had for many years the distinction of being the person who had lost the most money in history (more than $59 billion during the dot-com crash of 2000 alone, when his SoftBank shares plummeted), a feat surpassed by Elon Musk in the following decades.

THC Blues ???
- A new ban, tucked into legislation ending the longest shutdown in history, outlaws products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container.
== Industry executives said that threshold will wipe out 95% of the $28 billion hemp retail market when it takes effect in a year.
- 300,000 jobs could be effected ($28 billion annually)
- Possible that state laws will win out, but clearly Federal laws are not going the way of the industry.
- Concern that the blackmarket will grow again
- However, this can be seen in several ways as it may be cleaning up some of the selling of things like Delta-8 those weird knock-offs seen at gas stations)

UK Tax Scrap
- British government bond yields rose sharply on Friday morning as investors react to reports that Finance Minister Rachel Reeves will scrap an expected increase in income tax.
- The moves came as investors reacted to a report from the Financial Times of an income tax U-turn.
- Remember that they did a similar plan a few years ago that caused major havoc with markets and currencies until they withdrew the idea.

How Does This Work?
- House Republicans drafting legislation that will redirect Affordable Care Act subsidies to individuals and away from health insurance companies, according to Politico

Some Eco ...??
- Employment Situation for September 2025 that was supposed to be released on Friday, October 3, 2025, will now be release  Thursday, November 20, 2025 8:30 AM ET
- What about October? White House says it may NEVER be released

Hindenburg Omen
- There was some excitement in the world of technical analysis the past two weeks as we saw 5 separate signals fire for something called the Hindenburg Omen. This is a warning signal of trouble, but trouble does not always come. What is fair to say is that Hindenburg Omen signals have appeared at every major stock market top going back several decades.
- According to Tom McClellan: The current count of 5 signals is not as big as some other clusters. But we got 4 signals in a cluster at the end of 2021, ahead of the 2022 bear market. So 4 is enough, if the market is inclined to live up to this warning. And 2 signals were enough back in December 2024 and March 2025 to tell us about the trouble in the market which unfolded in the April 2025 tariff reaction minicrash. But 5 is better.

Pied Piper - Losing Followers
- OpenAi plans to invest $1.4 Trillion over the next 5 years or so
- Biggest beneficiary - Oracle
- Stock went from $250 to $340 overnight - now a $220 (Full Round-trip)
- Oracle is looking to raise $38 billion in debt sales to help fund its AI buildout, according to sources with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the information is confidential. Bloomberg reported on the planned debt raise last month.

Disney Earnings
- Hmmmmm......
- Shares fall 8% as revenue misses
- Digging in for a prolonged flight with YouTube
- The company also missed quarterly revenue expectations as the cable weakness overshadowed strong growth in the company's streaming and parks businesses central to its growth.
- Family of 4 - Trip to Disney - A  3-night trip with tickets and dining is estimated to be between $6,000 and $9,000

Starbucks
- Can it get any worse for this company?
- Starbucks Workers United launched a strike in more than 40 cities and 65 stores on the day of chain’s Red Cup Day sales event.
- NY incoming Mayor Mandami says there should be a total boycott of the stores
- The union is pushing for improved hours, higher wages and the resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges levied against Starbucks.

Buffett - Berkshire
- Berkshire Hathaway revealed a $4.3 billion stake in Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), and further reduced its stake in Apple (AAPL), detailing its equity portfolio for the last time before Warren Buffett ends his 60-year run as chief executive officer.
- They also sold more Bank of America - *6% reduction - although still the thrid largest stockholder
- Sold homebuilder DR Horton
- Bought position in Domino's Pizza and Chubb
---- DPZ chart looks terrible

Over to China
- Economy not getting any better
- Fixed-asset investment contracted 1.7% for the first ten months of the year, steepening from a 0.5% decline in the January-to-September period.
- Retail sales climbed 2.9% in October from a year earlier, softening from a 3% year-on-year rise in September.
- Industrial output expanded 4.9% in October, a slowdown from a 6.5% rise in the prior month.
- The last time China recorded a contraction in fixed-asset investment was in 2020 during the pandemic, according to data going back to 1992 from Wind Information, a private database focused on the country.

Electric Prices
- We know that the new wave of data centers are requiring HUGE amounts of energy to keep them running
- Residential utility bills rose 6% on average nationwide in August compared with the same period in the previous year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.