Are You Wearing Shorts?

It’s hot outside today (91 degrees), and investors are wearing shorts plus looking for protection against a big market rotation away from tech, election craziness, and other events, per Reuters. Maybe they’re looking at the aggressive earnings acceleration expected by analyst for 2H24.

Per BTIG, the fall tends to be more volatile. With the elections looming, we expect more of the same.

Alexa, find my business strategy. Alexa, will I ever make any profits? Those are some of the commands Bezos is pinging his device, given that Amazon's strategy to set prices low for Alexa devices hasn't paid off, per MSN.

Channeling their inner Run-DMC, the cybersecurity startup Wiz is walking away from GOOG’s $23bn acquisition offer, per CNBC. That takes some you-know-what. They’re looking to IPO now.

Musk makes a LOT of promises. You know that. I know that. Now, he’s saying Tesla will use humanoid robots next year internally, and then they’ll be selling them commercially, per the WSJ. I hope this one comes true, because YOU KNOW there will be mess-ups of the best kind. I cannot wait for those stories.

That’s what LPs are telling p/e funds trying to sell “continuation funds” to them. Basically, it’s financial engineering to buy time for underperforming investments by putting prior bad stuff into new funds. Then, they try to get new capital into the new fund and cash out former folks (including themselves) at a discount. Plus management fees being charged everywhere. LPs have too much tied up in this asset class, as we have reported before.

I have to get another car for my kids learning to drive, so it is perfect timing to hear that car manufacturers and dealers are slashing prices to offset softening demand, especially for EVs, per the FT. In car news, Porsche is down because the co lowered its guidance for the year, noting a shortage of aluminum parts that could halt production of some models—and weakness in China.

Coca-Cola raised its full year outlook higher prices. Spotify reported better-than-expected subscriber growth-higher prices, lower costs, strategic changes. GE raised its guidance too. We’ve got Tesla and Alphabet coming out later, so look for updates on robotaxis (urgh) and cloud biz…

We warned you, folks. WSJ reports that US retailers are pulling forward overseas orders to get ahead of worsening shipping disruptions. So, if a mgmt. team is not planning ahead, they may not get their stuff in time—or have to pay a hefty price.

Looks like geopolitics matter for the bottom lines. Reuters is saying that Apple will be a beneficiary of India’s budget proposal to cut import taxes on smartphones. Plus, Apple and Micron top execs are kissing rings in China because our gov is increasing chip curbs, per BBG. China stocks are down again today because there’s been a lack of policy support following the Third Plenum, per Bloomberg. Kind of sounds like a location from The Hunger Games. District 2 and 3rd Plenum…

The BoE plans to extend its repo facilities to avoid a liquidity problem, per Reuters.