💩 Recession canceled

And mortgage rates plummet

Author

Tyler Morin
August 09, 2024

Hey there weekday warriors,

Good news, you guys: Uncle Sam made the recession from earlier this week its b*tch. We can all breathe a sigh of relief


Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 19 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

Markets

+ US stocks “climbed Thursday after new labor market data boosted investors’ confidence in the U.S. economy following a sharp market sell-off earlier in the week.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “rose Thursday as Wall Street assessed weekly jobless claims data that came in below expectations, easing concern from July’s payroll report last week that the labor market was weakening.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled higher on Thursday for the third consecutive session, after U.S. jobs data eased demand concerns and war in the Middle East helped prices recover from an eight-month low on Monday.” (Reuters)

+ Cryptocurrencies “resumed their rebound from their big sell-off earlier in the week, with bitcoin at one point stopping shy of $60,000.” (CNBC)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Nvidia +6.1% 2) Robinhood +3.5% 3) Intel +7.9%

The market moves you need to know about


+ “Well, it could have been worse.” - investors after seeing Under Armour’s fiscal Q1 results. Don’t get me wrong, UA’s most recent quarter was bad
 just not as bad as expected. Shares jumped 19.1% on the day.

– E.l.f. Beauty reported massive sales growth (50%) and beat easily on the top and bottom lines. But shares dipped 10.5% after the cosmetics maker provided cautious guidance


+ Eat a d*ck, Delta. Despite the airline’s finger-pointing (see: massive Microsoft outage last week), CrowdStrike jumped 4.2% after it got some love on CNBC that helped reassure investors. No, it wasn’t Cramer.

Mission accomplished

Source: Giphy

In the span of just 5 trading days, Uncle Sam has officially defeated a recession. Mission accomplished, you guys.

It wasn’t easy, but markets soared on news that we’re all saved, everything is fine, and the show goes on. Oh, and Jamie Dimon is completely full of sh*t.

The S&P 500 jumped 2.3% on Thursday, marking its best day since November ‘22. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq climbed 2.8% and the Dow rose 600 points
 because at some point, we collectively as a society decided to only measure the Dow in “points” so that you’re always confused as to how it compares to other indices.

Why though?

Well, markets certainly got a boost following some healthy earnings reports (we see you, Eli Lilly). Plus, the big swingin’ AI stonks got back to doing what they do best: circumventing federal bans and shipping powerful AI chips to China and other US adversaries mooning.

It probably helped that the Yen fell against the dollar, breathing some life into the carry trade that fell apart late last week.

But, the biggest catalyst by far was the fact that the recession of 2024 was officially canceled.

Why? Weekly jobless claims pointed to an economy that’s stronger than a wedding d*ck. The number of laid-off workers filing for unemployment came in below expectations. Read: things aren’t that bad.

Investors didn’t seem to give a damn that it’s literally one data point. Just wait until they start having concerns that maybe, just maybe the Fed won’t cut rates by 0.5% in September, after all


TS

+ Bad news for everyone who has made their entire personality the fact that they’re locked into a mortgage rate in the 3s


Mortgage rates are free-falling. They’re now at their lowest point in more than 15 months. They’re hovering right around 6.5%.

So wtf is going on?

Well, remember that sh*tstorm at the beginning of the week? You know, when the sky was falling, and your retirement account was bleeding out? Turns out, the same recession fears are putting downward pressure on mortgage rates.

You see, mortgage rates (usually) fall when the 10-year Treasury yield drops. And expectations that the Fed would cut rates thanks sent the 10-year careening downwards.

🏠🔮 If you’re interested in residential real estate and real estate investing, you should check out my other newsletter


The Pocket List delivers real estate news and investing tips every Thursday (for free). Spoiler: it’s written by yours truly. You can join now for free. Click here to subscribe with one click.

+ Does this mean they’ll finally stop making Yellowstone spinoffs?

Sure, the Paramount-Skydance deal hasn’t closed yet, but that isn’t stopping David Ellison from getting some house cleaning done.

During what might be one of the media company’s final earnings calls, Paramount (-2.3% // +5.2% after hours) announced it was laying off ~15% of its workforce and writing down the value of its cable network by ~$6B.

+ “Sure, LinkedIn and Microsoft Excel are great, but wouldn’t shareholders love if we had the blood of innocent women and children on our hands?” - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft (+1.0%) announced a partnership that just screams “All our engineers are going to stage a walkout.” The company responsible for Outlook and Clippy is partnering with Palantir to bring AI solutions to the US defense and intelligence communities.

Shares of Palantir, for lack of a better word, rocketed 11.2% on the day.

Oh, and


+ Gmail experiencing worldwide outage in latest Google concern. Never thought I’d wish I was a Hotmail user.

+ Apple could charge up to $20 subscription fee for AI features. All the Apple fanboys be like “Shut up and take my money.”

+ Tim Walz’s net worth is less than the average American’s. Imagine being a politician and not getting your Nancy Pelosi on


đŸ”„ Inside the hard-partying, big-spending world of Wall Street’s summer interns. Spoiler: a bunch of 21-year-olds with too much money drink excessively and make questionable decisions in NYC.

FYI, TWC might be compensated if you click on the links above. So, what are you waiting for? Start clicking.

FWD

âȘ Yesterday, Eli Lilly, Datadog, Yeti, Under Armour, Penn Entertainment, and Papa John's reported before the bell.

And Gilead, Paramount, Dropbox, Sweetgreen, Rocket Lab, and Archer Aviation shared results after hours.

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on


+ Canopy Growth & Nikola report in the morning

+ The most batsh*t week in recent memory comes to an end


EXIT

Yesterday, I asked you guys to reply to this email with “SUP.”

SUP won with 99% of the vote.

Here’s today’s question


Let’s run it back


Reply to this email and say “SUP.” This tells the email gods that we’re actually friends and helps me get all up in your inbox.

Oh, and one more thing


What did you think about today's newsletter?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

FINE

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional.