Stocks Printing, Missiles Flying
301: Equities, Israel Iran, and 2024 Election
Good afternoon kings and queens — hopefully I caught you sneaking out of the office early to begin some Wednesday shenanigans.
Free post today for all subscribers covering the latest in markets and global news.
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If you’ve missed some of the paid deep dives we’ve put out this week you can find them linked below.
Walks through major potential black swan events on the horizon in the US and across the world including Cyber disruptions, war, terrorism, and market shifts.
Overview of domestic risk factors, the media cover up of the Donald Trump assassination attempt and sudden support for Kamala Harris.
Global Markets
Markets have been anticipating direction from the Fed this afternoon and weighing the changing odds of who will win in November. The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at 5.25% - 5.50%, reiterating that there will be no rate cuts until there is confidence that inflation is moving to 2%. Tech has had a predictable pullback late last week and earlier this week as small caps pumped, though some names including semis saw a solid bounce today.
Crypto is still in a several month long consolidation range as we start to see some positive inflows into the ETH ETFs after days of dumping from Greyscale.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil for September delivery fell $1.08 to $74.73 per barrel Tuesday - Crude oil prices are up 5% at end of day Wednesday
Nancy Pelosi the insider trading size queen has purchased another $1.3 million worth of Nvidia
Gold prices have up over 17% for the year so far — trading above $2,400 this week
Bill Ackman announces that Pershing Square USA, Ltd. has withdrawn it’s IPO
The rate of hiring is below the pre-pandemic normal (Bloomberg)
El Salvador proposes using cryptocurrency for trade settlements with Russia.
Tether reported record-breaking profits of $5.2 billion for the first half of 2024.
Rite Aid has now closed 694 stores since filing for bankruptcy (MacroEdge)
MacroEdge has a first preliminary estimate of 98,672 job cuts in July — you can track their updates HERE
Equity markets are beginning to soften.
Microsoft MSFT 0.00%↑ was down 8% yesterday as AI hype begins to fade. Semi king Nvidia NVDA 0.00%↑ has fallen quite a bit in the past 2 weeks — data suggests heavy insider selling. AMD reported revenue growth from data centers over 115% — AMDs CEO is still bullish on the AI cycle. Meta stock, META 0.00%↑ is ripping after hours up over — 8% after beating Q2 2024 earnings expectations (Kobeissi Letter).
NVDA and AMD are both up over 9% at the time of writing this 9:40am ET.
While I still have a foot in the corporate world in addition to running Andy and my online businesses — I have dabbled with applications/job exploring and I can tell you it’s bleak right now. I still get interviews but it’s getting harder and harder and many of the roles pay less than they did in the last two years (finance/tech sales).
We noted the initial announcement last week but Intel announced layoffs are coming for 10,000 employees in order to cut costs.
Starbucks SBUX 0.00%↑ reports had it’s second straight quarterly decline in revenue, with Q2 2024 revenue falling down to $9.1 billion, below expectations. Traffic at US stores fell by 6% and same-store sales slid 7% internationally (Kobeissi Letter). Worth noting McDonalds also recently saw global sales slump for the first time in three years. I miss cheap McChickens.
Firearms & Options Play Updates
Our SWBI 0.00%↑ is printing right now — we first noted this as a potential long for the Fall when it fell to the 14’s but has since reversed and is now fast approaching the $17 level. POWW 0.00%↑ is lagging but RGR 0.00%↑ and VSTO 0.00%↑ may also be worth taking a look at before the Fall.
Kamala Harris has continued her anti gun rhetoric on the campaign trail — citing support for a mandatory buyback program for AR type weapons across the US. She promised universal background checks, assault weapons ban, and red flag laws in her Atlanta speech.
Crypto
We’ve seen a lull in crypto markets since the ETH ETF — though this was partially expected. The reality is one of the largest remaining longer term risks to the crypto industry is a Democratic victory in November.
The name of the game right now is patience — though the risk of a Kamala win in November cannot be understated for the medium term price action within crypto (more on that as it becomes necessary).
The insitutions are interested they have started adding to positions and we are getting bullish announcement left and right — including a strategic Bitcoin Reserve and committed buying from the Nashville Bitcoin conference. Remains to be seen if the US government jeets all of it’s Bitcoin — the wallets had some mysterious activity only 48 hours AFTER Trump announced his intention to form the Strategic Reserve. May be an attempt to shoot that initiative dead given Trump announced he will not sell any of that supply the government holds (taken from criminals, defunct exchanges, etc.).
The ultra bullish situation that would really spark a god run would be a Trump win AND a rate cut from the Fed in the Fall. We can hope and pray — for now I am DCAing and adding to my alt positions in the event we get a run up sooner.
More on crypto next week, including an alt coin guide.
World News
Widespread unrest and violence continues in Venezuela on the heels of a clearly rigged election in which incumbent Maduro is attempting to retain power.
Cops and military members have switched sides and the streets are in chaos with looting, riots, and confusion. Key pro Gonzalez supporters are being arrested and sought out by Maduro’s forces.
Venezuelan President Maduro said this week that the CIA killed John F. Kennedy, tried to kill Donald Trump, and is now attempting to incite civil unrest in his country during an election. Maduro also called out his opponent Gonzalez saying on a video address:
“I hold you responsible Mr. González for the criminal violence, for the injured, for the deceased, for the destruction, you will be directly responsible & Mrs. Machado. Justice will come"
Javier Milei of Argentina said the following on Tuesday:
“Dictator Maduro has committed elector fraud. He has awakened the Venezuelan lions and sooner or later socialism is going to end. Socialism is always murderous. Courage, dear Venezuelans”
As I noted in the post on Monday — there are some interesting connections to be explored between the CIA, the voting companies used both in the US and Venezuela, and of course the statements made by the US to investigate what is happening in the chaotic country.
Over 50% of young Liberal Women have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (Pew Research Center)
France has reported 68 cyberattacks linked to the Olympics on the heels of the fast rail attack and blackouts (Insider Paper)
Southport, UK erupted into aggressive protests on the heels of the murder spree that left 3 children dead
China imposes export controls on drones and parts with potential for military use (Indo Pacific News)
The University of Alabama has closed down it’s DEI offices, joining Texas and Florida schools, (NYP)
An illegal migrant who shot a Texas cop was set to be deported, but the judge ended up giving him a second chance to stay in US (NYP)
Boar's Head has recalled 207,000lbs of deli meat ($28B in market share according to company correspondence) over fears of a Listeria outbreak
The first delivery of the F-16 fighter jets from NATO allies has arrived in Ukraine - (Bloomberg)
The Feds have arrested an ex-US Green Beret in connection to the failed 2020 raid in Venezuela to remove Maduro (AP)
Israel & The Middle East
Conflict in the Middle East is continuing to escalate — last night at 2:00am Israel conducted an airstrike with a precision missile that killed the political leader of Ismail Haniyeh, 62, was assassinated in Tehran after he attended the inauguration ceremony for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Hamas said.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed that Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards had been killed in a strike on their residence and said it was investigating, Iranian state media reported (NBC News). The missile was incredibly precise and was allegedly fired from outside the countries’ airspace.
This came after the Israel Defense Forces announced on Tuesday that they conducted an airstrike in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, resulting in the death of a senior Hezbollah commander who was behind a recent rocket attack over the weekend that killed 12 children and teenagers near a soccer field in the Golan Heights.
As of Wednesday Khamenei of Iran has issued an order for Iranian forces to strike Israel directly in retaliation for the killing of Hamas's leader in Tehran (NYT). Sounds like cap but we will see what that response is or isn’t in the next 48 hours.
Travel and operations are disrupted in the region as officials anticipate escalation in the coming days. The United States has just raised its Lebanon Travel Advisory from Level 3: Reconsider Travel to Level 4: Do Not Travel (Disclose TV).
People should not underestimate how large of an escalation this is on Israel’s part — it would be similar to Iran striking Netanyahu inside Israel. I am not providing any angle or argument morally — just demonstrating how this will be viewed by Iran and their proxies in the region.
Also curious — and we may need to explore this later — that we get tidbits of information from our own government about an Iranian plot to assassinate a Presidential candidate AND that Iran is financing anti Israel protests we are seeing in the US.
Trump Assassination Attempt
It’s important that those of us who value liberty, freedom, and truth don’t let the assassination attempt on Former President Trump fade away — particularly because we have even more unanswered questions and context that suggest this was in fact an organized hit and not the miraculous work of a random 20 year old.
A Secret Service sniper criticized his superiors while warning of another assassination attempt on President Trump in a publicized email online this week.
An email purportedly sent by a USSS counter-sniper to the agency’s Uniformed Division on Monday night this week expresses concerns that the agency's internal issues remain unresolved and unaddressed, increasing the likelihood of another assassination attempt before the 2024 presidential election.
I tend to agree — I will not be shocked in the slightest if another attempt is made on Trump’s life before the election. The powers that be do not care about how brazen or obvious their actions are at this point.
New video surfaced today on Twitter via Fox News clearly depicting the shooter scrambling on roof tops behind Trump.
As I said on Twitter — at this point I genuinely don’t know how people can conclude this wasn’t either:
a.) allowed to occur
or
b.) an organized hit job
The facts and details scream foul play.
Kamala Harris is off to a hot start on her campaign — following a twerk performance by Megan Thee Stallion at her rally in Atlanta. She was also criticized for changing her accent and referencing the rapper Quavo who spoke on gun safety LOL. Quavo is known for gun safety positions demonstrated in a few of his song lyrics like the ones below from his hit “I Need It”:
What's your issue? If you got a trigger, just squeeze it (bah, squeeze it, bah, squeeze it)
Extendo barrel elastic, new attachment, shit get tactic (tactical)
The demonstration just showed how insane the political climate in this country has become — only weeks after Donald Trump almost gets his head blown off on live TV we have the rival candidate following a twerk fest. The “Trump” “Vance” are weird campaign is in full swing in the media as they work in lockstep to convince half the nation that Kamala is competent.
Amazing how so many people can believe something so false so quickly.
FischerKing puts it well on Twitter:
Take care and have a great evening. I will see you guys tomorrow.
Disclaimer - I am a former trader, enterprise sales rep, and current entrepreneur. Nothing I say should be considered formal financial advice - always do your own research and diligence before investing and ensure you have a good understanding of your personal risk tolerance.