DHUnplugged #704: The Miracle Flight

DHUnplugged Podcast

Short Week – 4 days of trading – then EOM

The Miracle Flight – I have witnesses this with my own eyes

Cruise anyone?

Global Warming – New Info In

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Warm Up
- Short Week - 4 days of trading - then EOM
- The Miracle Flight - I have witnesses this with my own eyes
- Cruise anyone?
- Global Warming - New Info In

Market Update
- 40,000 ! Then we fail
- Fed Officials Hawkish behind closed doors
- BBQFlation
- Split Excitement!
- Hindenburg Omen

Fed - Two Faced
- Federal Reserve officials grew more concerned at their most recent meeting about inflation, with members indicating that they lacked the confidence to move forward on interest rate reductions.
- Minutes from the April 30-May 1 policy meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee released Wednesday indicated apprehension from policymakers about when it would be time to ease.
- The meeting followed a slew of readings that showed inflation was more stubborn than officials had expected to start 2024.

BBQFlation
- Your Memorial Day barbecue will cost upward of 10 percent more than it did this time last year according to Datasembly
- Datasembly follows the cost of groceries across the country every week. Its recently released data points to this year's Memorial Day festivities costing the average American family about $30.18 or 10.19% more than 2023.
- Burgers jumped from $7.04 in 2023 to $8.07 in 2024, or a change of 14.63% in cost. Hamburger buns cost two cents more, from $3.04 on average to $3.06.

Hindenburg Omen
- Indicator was triggered last week.
- only right about 25% of the time
- Was thought to be able to predict market crashes - let's see what happens.

FED HEAD
- The Federal Reserve should wait for significant progress on inflation before cutting interest rates, Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari told CNBC on Tuesday.
- Asked what conditions were needed for the Fed to cut rates once or twice this year, Kashkari said: “Many more months of positive inflation data, I think, to give me confidence that it’s appropriate to dial back.”
- He said the central bank could potentially even hike rates if inflation fails to come down further. “I don’t think we should rule anything out at this point,” Kashkari added.

Could we finally get relief from these thieves?
- The U.S. Department of Justice is suing to break up Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, over alleged antitrust violations.
- The lawsuit, joined by 30 states and filed Thursday, follows a DOJ investigation into whether Live Nation maintains a monopoly in the ticketing industry, a probe launched in 2022 and bolstered by fan complaints following a botched roll out for tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras tour.
- In a statement, Live Nation said the DOJ's allegations of a monopoly are "absurd."
- "The DOJ's complaint attempts to portray Live Nation and Ticketmaster as the cause of fan frustration with the live entertainment industry. It blames concert promoters and ticketing companies—neither of which control ticket prices—for high ticket prices. It ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from increasing production costs to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public's willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost," said Dan Wall, Live Nation executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs.

DONATIONS- New Shirt Design?

Miracle Flights
- The 1986 Air Carrier Access Act requires airlines to provide a wheelchair to passengers with disabilities at the airport. The problem: Many travelers are faking it, Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle says.
- "There is massive, rampant abuse of special services. There are people using wheelchair assistance who don't need it at all," Biffle said at a Wings Club luncheon on Thursday in New York.
- He said he had seen Frontier flights where 20 people were brought to the plane with wheelchairs, but only three wheelchairs were used upon arrival.
- It costs the airline between $30 and $35 each time a customer requests a wheelchair, Biffle said, and abuse of the service leads to delays for travelers with genuine need for assistance.

More Airline
- Boeing revealed on Friday that it’s seen a 500% increase in the number of employee submissions about quality and safety concerns during the first two months of 2024 compared to the same period a year ago.
- Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says that climate change is one of the culprits behind an increase in flight turbulence.
- “The reality is, the effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation,” Buttigieg said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, forecasting that turbulence is something that will continue to “affect American travelers, whether here or abroad.”

Still Going
- Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis said on Saturday it has urged Tesla shareholders to reject a $56 billion pay package for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, which if passed would be the largest pay package for a CEO in corporate America.
- The report cited reasons like the "excessive size" of the pay deal, the dilutive effect upon exercise and the concentration of ownership. It also mentioned Musk's "slate of extraordinarily time-consuming projects" which have expanded with his high-profile purchase of Twitter, now known as X.

Follow Up - SEC ETH ETF
- The SEC approved a rule change that would pave the way for ETFs that buy and hold ether, one of the world's largest cryptocurrencies.
- The decision comes less than six months after the SEC approved bitcoin ETFs. Those funds have proven to be a big success for the industry, with net inflows already surpassing $12 billion, according to FactSet.

NVDA Earnings
- Earnings Per Share: $6.12 adjusted vs. $5.59 adjusted, per LSEG consensus estimates.
- Revenue: $26.04 billion vs. $24.65 billion expected by LSEG
- Nvidia said it expected sales of $28 billion in the current quarter. Wall Street was anticipating earnings per share of $5.95 on sales of $26.61 billion, according to LSEG.
- 10:1 Stock Split and dividend increase
- Looking to go into the DJIA?
- Shares moved > $1,000 after the very upbeat report

NVDA Spilt
- 10:1 on June 7th
- What happens after that? (Shares and options cheaper)

Target Earnings
- Target on Wednesday posted a year-over-year sales decline and missed Wall Street’s earnings estimates, as consumers fatigued from high prices bought both fewer discretionary items and groceries.
- Target stuck with its prior full-year forecast, saying it expects comparable sales will range from flat to up 2% and adjusted earnings per share will be $8.60 to $9.60. Company leaders said the retailer is on track to return to sales growth in the second quarter.
- Earnings per share: $2.03 vs. $2.06 expected
- Revenue: $24.53 billion vs. $24.52 billion expected
- It marked the first time since November 2022 that Target missed earnings expectations.
- Shares of the company closed about 8% lower on Wednesday.

Cruise Lines Making a comeback?
-Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. raised its full-year 2024 EPS guidance for the second time in May 2024 at its Investor Day. While the cruise industry was the epicenter during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s one of the remaining industries to experience positive normalization as the travel boom continues to flourish.
- Norwegian Cruise Line reported a Q1 2024 EPS beat of nine cents and revenue growth of 20.3% YOY to $2.19 billion, falling short of $2.23 billion.
- Norwegian Cruise Line raised its full-year 2024 EPS estimates twice in May to $1.43 versus $1.26 consensus estimates.

PSA from GameStop and AMC
- Thank you to all of the suckers that bought our stocks during the recent run0up. We were ready this time and sold right into your buying frenzy. At Gamestop, the company took in more than $1 billion at a nosebleed valuation, right before shares tumbled back to reality.

T+1
-Starting today, trades of stocks and several other securities will need to be settled by the end of the next business day. Settlement involves the actual swap of money for a security. This so-called “T+1 settlement” is an acceleration of the previous process, which allowed for two business days.
- The move is the latest evolution to make the plumbing of Wall Street look more like the front-end, which is increasingly moving toward trading apps and around-the-clock markets.

Stock Market Trivia
- Where's the oldest stock exchange in the world? The Antwerp Belgium Bourse opened its doors in 1460 and kept going until 1997.
- What was the first exchange in the US? Philadelphia Stock Exchange, founded in 1790, predated the NYSE by two years.
- What was the first listed company on the NYSE? Bank of New York Shares of the Bank of New York were traded under the fabled buttonwood tree on Wall Street in 1792.
- What's the name for the method of communications used by stock traders frantically running around a trading floor and using hand signals? Open outcry is the (perhaps soon-to-be extinct) way to communicate transactions through shouting and hand signals.
- What "Greed is good" character is Michael Douglas reprising for Oliver Stone? Gordon Gekko

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