HI Market View Commentary 08-11-2025
We have a problem = AWS – Amazon is the network provider for APEX, MoneyBlock
How have we been placing trades?
Welcome to the 1980’s = I have to call in orders, they have to be grouped into a block order (10,000 shares or 1000 contracts), MoneyBlock sends it to the floor traders, the floor traders do their hand signal trading, the orders are confirmed, the floor traders send it back to Moneyblock, Moneyblock registers the trades by hand into individual accounts, send me a notification and then the positions show up in your accounts.
Meta is up over 10%, MU is up 12%, NVDA up 9%, PLTR is up 13%, BAC 0%, AAPL 10%, BA 5.5%
DIS is down 7.45% roughly BUT we have $120 puts in place that had in place before the problem
As of right now no Money, no SS#’s, No addresses no info has left MoneyBlock for the hack
FBI, FINRA, SEC, Local, State other Fed Authorities are looking for the digital footprint.
Please don’t think that your SS#, Birthdate, Address, Kids, Work History ISN’T already on the dark web
Kevin why are we in the Mag 7 or Mag 11 ish as a concentrated positions? = Minus Neflix, TSLA, AMZN, MSFT
80% of the last 3 years the profits came from these stocks, 46% of S&P 500 growth this is from 11 stocks
BAC, JPM, WMT, BA, LMT , VZ, JEPI, O,
| All historical trends are no longer working.’ This strategist says retail investors are completely baffling Wall Street. Retail buyers are ‘completely confusing’ institutional players, says Mark Hackett By Barbara Kollmeyer The battle between retail and institutional investors took a step further on Monday. Strategist Mark Hackett says don’t bet against them. PHOTO: MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ISTOCKPHOTO Judging by U.S. stock futures action, investors look ready to buy Tuesday’s dip in the stock market triggered by weak service-sector numbers and signs of price pressures. Our call of the day from Nationwide Investment Management Group’s chief market strategist, Mark Hackett, discusses the fierce battle that’s been ongoing between institutional and retail investors. He says for now, Wall Street shouldn’t bet against that cohort. Friday’s selloff marked a “typical response” for the institutional investors, Hackett told MarketWatch in an interview. “Bad jobs data on top of the tariff launch and then you had the Russia submarine issue. There’s a whole lot of things together that caused the pullback in the market and then you saw Monday which was almost a complete reversal,” he said. “To me, that is retail investors having been trained into this concept of buying a dip and it’s confusing institutional investors completely at this point,” he said. “And then you go back to the April/May timeframe where institutions were completely on the sidelines, very conservatively positioned and the retail investors was aggressively buying dips. Now it’s worked so many times, at this point, the retail investor has fueled this sense of inevitability about recoveries, and that’s what i think you saw [Monday] continuing a little bit today [Tuesday],” said Hackett. |
Earnings
MU 09/24 est
TGT 08/20 BMO
WMT 08/21 BMO
The Big Picture
Last Updated: 08-Aug-25 15:01 ET | Archive
Bull market booms with valuation warnings in sight
Briefing.com Summary:
*High valuations aren’t necessarily sell signals, but they raise the stakes for bad news.
*There is a valuation gauge that suggests investors are “playing with fire.”
*Fundamentals are the tripwire: one shock– rates, earnings, geopolitics– and the bull run could stumble.
If you can imagine running with the bulls in Pamplona, then you can imagine the state of the stock market right now. There is excitement, there is frivolity, there is nervous energy, and there is a big risk of getting run over if something trips you while you are in front of the bulls.
Right now, there are many participants staying ahead of this bull market by favoring the mega-cap stocks, AI growth plays, and heavily shorted issues. It isn’t all fundamental business. In some cases, it really is just fun and games.
A herd mentality has taken over. Buy any dip… stay with the mega-cap names… invest in themes… buy memes… or, as CNBC’s Jim Cramer likes to exclaim at times, “buy, buy, buy!”
You know what? It has worked. Frankly, the herd has been running as dominantly as Usain Bolt. It doesn’t have any gold medals to show for it, but it has major indices at record highs and huge gains as victory-laden substitutes.
This market is undoubtedly running with the bulls, and it has the premium valuation to show for it. That isn’t a problem until, well, something fundamental trips up the market.
A View of a Premium Valuation
Valuation itself is not a good market timing indicator.
In other words, just because the market trades with a premium valuation doesn’t mean you have to sell everything and go to cash. It doesn’t mean you should flip from long positions to short positions, and it doesn’t mean a crash is imminent.
A premium valuation, however, does present a warning sign that downside risk can be material if other fundamental factors or exogenous forces alter the market’s stride in an appreciable manner.
That could be a spike in interest rates due to something like a debt crisis or untamed inflation; it could be disappointing earnings growth; it could be a credit episode; it could be a geopolitical event like China invading Taiwan; it could be a fiscal shock like a large tax hike; it could be a global pandemic; or it could be the infamous “Black Swan” (i.e., the thing no one saw coming).
One can imagine all sorts of risk factors. The point is that a market trading with a premium valuation needs good things that justify the premium valuation to keep happening. If they don’t, the market will, at best, lose its energy, or, at worst, devolve into a bear market.
So, what is the objective measure of a “premium valuation”? Let’s go to the charts to illustrate that standing.
- S&P 500 P/E Ratio (price of the S&P 500 divided by forward twelve-month earnings estimate or trailing twelve-month earnings)
- The FTM P/E ratio of 22.2 is a 33% premium to the 25-year average.
- The TTM P/E ratio of 24.2 is a 32% premium to the 25-year average.
- Robert J. Shiller, Cyclically Adjusted P/E 10 Ratio (based on average inflation-adjusted earnings from previous 10 years)
- It stands at 37.8 today versus 38.6 in December 2021 and its peak of 44.2 in December 1999.
- The Buffet Indicator (how Warren Buffett views things): “If the percentage relationship falls to the 70% or 80% area, buying stocks is likely to work very well for you. If the ratio approaches 200%—as it did in 1999 and a part of 2000—you are playing with fire.”
Briefing.com Analyst Insight
The high P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is grounded in the outperformance of its mega-cap constituents that have earned their keep in most instances. Arguably, that makes the complexion of today’s high P/E ratio different than the high P/E ratios of the past when companies didn’t have the earnings power that these mega-cap stocks have demonstrated.
The caveat is that the exact same point could have been made in late 2021 and earlier this year (pre-Liberation Day), and that didn’t stop the S&P 500 from suffering a material decline. Why? In both instances, there was a perception that their earnings prospects wouldn’t live up to high expectations. That was because the Fed was aggressively raising rates in 2022 to tame inflation and because recession fears were elevated earlier this year when the president first announced the reciprocal tariff rates.
Those reactions proved two things: (1) you can’t use valuation in isolation as a basis to time the market, and (2) a change in the fundamental outlook, coupled with the high valuation, became the catalyst for the aggressive selling interest during those periods.
Valuation matters. It simply matters less as a selling catalyst in bull markets governed by a positive fundamental outlook. High valuations can be the basis for a consolidation period at any point during a bull market run, yet they become the basis for a correction, or worse, when the fundamental outlook gets tripped up. That is true for individual stocks as well as the broader market.
Given that, relish the excitement, the frivolity, and the energy of this run, but don’t completely ignore the risk of running with the bulls. If you do, you may end up getting the horns.
—Patrick J. O’Hare, Briefing.com
Where will our markets end this week?
Lower
DJIA – Bullish
SPX – Bullish
COMP – Bullish
Where Will the SPX end August 2025?
08-11-2025 -1.0%
08-04-2025 -2.0%
Earnings:
Mon:
Tues: CAH. TME, CRWV, HRB,
Wed: CSCO,
Thur: DE, JD, NTES, TPR,
Fri:
Econ Reports:
Mon:
Tue CPI, Core CPI, Treasusry Budget
Wed: MBA,
Thur: Initial Claims, Continuing Claims, PPI, Core PPI
Fri: Empire Manufacturing, Retail Sales, Retail Sales ex-auto, Michigan Sentiment, Capacity Utilization, Industrial Production, Business Inventory, TIC Flows.
How am I looking to trade?
Time to start protecting for earnings
www.myhurleyinvestment.com = Blogsite
info@hurleyinvestments.com = Email
Questions???
Trump vows 100% tariff on chips, unless companies are building in the U.S.
Published Wed, Aug 6 20255:31 PM EDTUpdated Thu, Aug 7 20256:56 AM EDT
Kevin Breuninger@KevinWilliamB
Key Points
- President Donald Trump said he will impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, but not for companies that are “building in the United States.”
- Specifics about the plan, such as how much U.S. manufacturing a company needs to do in order to qualify for the tariff exemption, were not immediately clear.
- The remarks came after Trump touted a commitment by Apple to invest another $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.
President Trump vows 100% tariff on chips, unless companies are building in the U.S.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, but not for companies that are “building in the United States.”
The announcement of new sector-specific tariffs shows Trump ratcheting up his efforts to pressure businesses to manufacture their products in the U.S.
But specifics about the plan, such as how much U.S. manufacturing a company needs to do in order to qualify for the tariff exemption, were not immediately clear.
“We’re going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon.
“But the good news for companies like Apple is if you’re building in the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge,” he said.
“So in other words, we’ll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”
Trump had previously signaled that the duties on chips and semiconductors, which have become key components in virtually every industry, could come as soon as next week.
The remarks came after Trump touted a commitment by Apple to invest another $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, on top of the $500 billion the tech giant has previously pledged.
Several top chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor, Nvidia and GlobalFoundries, have already pledged to manufacture some of their products in the U.S.
They’re not alone: More than 130 projects in the U.S. totaling $600 billion dollars have been announced since 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip company, has pledged to invest a total of $165 billion in U.S. manufacturing.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, said in April that it plans to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years.
GlobalFoundries pledged $16 billion in June to expand its semiconductor manufacturing at facilities in New York and Vermont.
Also in June, Texas Instruments announced a $60 billion boost to seven chip fabs in the U.S. The company counts Apple, Ford, Medtronic, Nvidia and SpaceX as customers.
Apple’s Tim Cook convinced Trump to drop made-in-USA iPhone — for now
How Tim Cook convinced Trump to drop made-in-USA iPhone — for now
Published Thu, Aug 7 20254:47 PM EDTUpdated Fri, Aug 8 20258:42 AM EDT
Key Points
- Apple CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday appeared at the White House with President Trump to announce plans to spend about $600 billion over four years in the U.S.
- But a closer look at Apple’s announcements suggest that what Cook disclosed was an update to its U.S. strategy, not a major break.
- Experts said Cook’s announcement seemed designed to get Apple out of Trump’s crosshairs with respect to tariffs.
President Donald Trump has made clear that he wants Apple to make iPhones in the U.S.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is doing what he can to appease the commander in chief, without making that ultimate concession.
Cook on Wednesday appeared at the White House with Trump to announce plans to spend about $600 billion over four years in the U.S. Apple didn’t announce the made-in-USA iPhone that Trump wants, but Cook got to tout Apple’s position on U.S. production.
Some of Apple’s most valuable parts, such as its glass and facial recognition sensor, are made by U.S. companies that Apple has worked with for years. Final assembly is only a small, though very critical, part of iPhone production.
“The final assembly that you focus on, that will be elsewhere for a while,” Cook said Wednesday in the Oval Office.
Trump appeared happy enough, for now.
“He makes many of the components here, and we’ve been talking about it,” Trump said. “The whole thing is set up in other places, and it’s been there for a long time in terms of cost and all, but I think we may incentivize him enough that one day he’ll be bringing that back.”
Experts said Cook’s announcement seemed designed to get Apple out of Trump’s crosshairs with respect to tariffs. Trump announced during the public meeting that the administration planned to place a tariff on chips that would double their price, but Apple — which relies on hundreds of different chips for its devices — would be exempt.
“CEOs are realizing that they do have to do something, and what they’ve discovered is that if they give the president something to brag about without destroying their company, that the problem might go away for a certain amount of time,” said Peter Cohan, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Babson College who has written case studies on Apple.
The gambit worked. Apple stock rose 5% on Wednesday and another 3% on Thursday.
“What Tim Cook demonstrated in the first administration was a real savvy navigation of the treacherous waters,” said Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tengler Investments, which holds a position in Apple. “I thought this announcement was super-important symbolically, because the president is looking for headlines.”
What Apple announced
The centerpiece of Apple’s announcement was the so-called American Manufacturing Program, which Apple said was designed to incentivize other companies to make parts for computers in the U.S.
By Apple committing to purchase parts and expand its relationship with U.S. suppliers, it could give those companies the skills and capacity to expand their business. And it lets Apple take some credit for supporting the 450,000 total jobs at its suppliers.
A closer look at the members of the program shows that Apple is leaning on some of its longest-tenured partners. All together, Apple said that its U.S. suppliers are on track to make 19 billion chips for its products this year. That level of business doesn’t appear overnight.
For example, Apple said that all of its cover glass for iPhones and Apple Watches would be made by Corning, in Kentucky, and that it would spend $2.5 billion on that effort. It’s a powerful symbol — while the phone might be screwed together in China or India, the surface that users touch around the world will be made in the U.S.
But Apple has pointed to Corning as a critical American supplier in the past. The company’s glass has been used on the iPhone since its first version in 2007. While Apple typically doesn’t let its suppliers talk about their relationships, former COO Jeff Williams hailed Corning’s glass in 2017, when it got an “investment” from the Apple Advanced Manufacturing Fund. Apple followed that up with a $250 million commitment in 2019, and $45 million in 2021.
Analysts are skeptical that the partnership could substantially improve Corning’s revenue. Morgan Stanley analysts wrote on Thursday that Corning “already produces 100% of the cover glass for Apple’s phones and tablets,” adding that Corning’s glass business called Specialty Materials is worth about $2 billion per year.
Apple also highlighted its partnership with Coherent, a longtime supplier of lasers for Apple’s facial recognition hardware, which is made in Texas. Morgan Stanley pegged the business at about $100 million per year, and said Apple has options including Lumentum and Sony.
The iPhone maker said it expanded a partnership with Texas Instruments to make chips in Texas and Utah. Texas Instruments has long supplied chips for the iPhone, such as circuits to control USB interfaces or power displays. Apple said it would partner with Samsung, another key supplier of parts like iPhone displays, to launch an “innovative new technology for making chips,” without offering additional details.
Apple declared that it will partner directly with companies in the semiconductor chain, even if they typically sell services or goods to Apple suppliers. Other partnerships are with Applied Materials, a tooling company, GlobalFoundries, a chip foundry, and GlobalWafers America, which is supplying Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Texas Instruments with made-in-USA wafers, the starting point for a batch of chips.
GlobalFoundries manufactures chips for Broadcom, which supplies wireless chips for iPhones. Both will work with Apple to develop and manufacture 5G components in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Apple will buy millions of advanced chips made by TSMC in Arizona, where it will be the factory’s largest customer. Cook joined former President Joe Biden at the plant in 2022 and committed to buying chips from the factory.
Apple said it would invest in and become a customer at an Arizona Amkor facility, which packages and tests chips, the final stage before installation in a computer.
Apple also said it would expand existing data centers for artificial intelligence in North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Oregon. It’s highlighted these data centers in the past in spending commitments.
While Apple’s announcement sent partner stocks up, JPMorgan Chase analysts warned in a note on Thursday that “the new and expanded engagements might not be completely incremental to global revenues and outlook.”
Trump had a different take.
“Oh, I love that you’re doing this,” the president said, after reading a list of Apple’s commitments.
‘Cost of doing business’
Apple has little to worry about when it comes to who will hold the company accountable for its promises. The company doesn’t break out U.S. spending, and most of Apple’s suppliers are contractually required to keep the information secret. Apple doesn’t report how much its new campuses in Austin, Texas, or North Carolina end up costing.
Additionally, the $600 billion headline number likely includes lots of regular expenses.
Apple said in February that its $500 billion commitment included payments to U.S. suppliers, direct employment, data centers for Apple Intelligence and corporate facilities, as well as spending on Apple TV+ productions in 20 states.
Apple started publicly announcing U.S. spending during Trump’s first administration in 2018, at a rate of about $70 billion per year. In February, the company committed to $125 billion per year. Wednesday’s announcement brings that figure to $150 billion annually.
That’s still a fraction of Apple’s total spending.
In Apple’s fiscal 2024, the company spent $210 billion globally on cost of goods sold, $57.5 billion on operating expenses and $9.45 billion in capital expenditures for nearly $275 billion in global spending during the period.
Teffler said she didn’t think the newly announced spending would be material to Apple’s profitability, especially since it already has relationships with the various companies such as Corning.
“They’re going to spend money somewhere,” Tegler said.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who previously predicted a made-in-USA iPhone would cost billions to produce and would leave consumers paying $3,500, said the Wednesday announcements indicate a much different approach. He said it’s “the cost of doing business.”
Trade Desk tanks 39% for worst day ever on CFO departure and competition from Amazon
Published Fri, Aug 8 202512:48 PM EDTUpdated Fri, Aug 8 20254:15 PM EDT
Key Points
- Shares of The Trade Desk fell almost 40% on Friday and headed for their worst day on record.
- The ad-tech company reported better-than-expected results for the second quarter, but analysts are increasingly concerned about competition from Amazon.
- With Amazon becoming a bigger ad player across the internet, “The Trade Desk’s value proposition could erode over time,” Wedbush analysts wrote.
Shares of The Trade Desk plummeted 39% on Friday, their worst day on record, after the ad-tech company announced the departure of its CFO and analysts expressed concerns about rising competition from Amazon.
The Trade Desk, which went public in 2016, suffered its steepest prior drop in February, when the shares fell 33% on a revenue miss. In its second-quarter earnings report late Thursday, the company beat expectations on earnings and revenue, but the results failed to impress investors.
The Trade Desk, which specializes in providing technology to companies that want to target users across the web, said finance chief Laura Schenkein is leaving the job and being replaced by Alex Kayyal, who has been working as a partner at Lightspeed Ventures.
While some analysts were uneasy about the sudden change in the top finance role, the bigger concern is Amazon’s growing role in the online ad market, as well as the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on ad spending.
Amazon has emerged as a significant player in the digital advertising market in recent years, and is now third behind Google and Meta. Last week, Amazon reported a 23% increase in ad revenue for the second quarter to $15.7 billion, which beat estimates.
Amazon’s ad business has largely been tied to its own platforms, with brands paying up so they can get discovered on the sprawling marketplace. However, Amazon’s demand-side platform (DSP), which allows brands to programmatically place ads across a wider swath of internet properties, is gaining more resonance in the market.
“Amazon is now unlocking access to traditionally exclusive ‘premium’ ad inventory across the open internet, validating the strength of its DSP and suggesting The Trade Desk’s value proposition could erode over time,” Wedbush analysts wrote on Friday.
The Wedbush analysts lowered their rating on The Trade Desk to the equivalent of hold from buy, and cited Amazon’s recent ad integration with Disney as a sign of the company’s aggressiveness.
Executives at The Trade Desk were asked about Amazon on the call, and responded by suggesting that the companies don’t really compete, emphasizing that Amazon is conflicted because it will always prioritize its own properties.
Simon: The consumer’s never been more in control than they are right now
“A scaled independent DSP like The Trade Desk becomes essential as we help advertisers buy across everything and that we have to do that without conflict or compromise,” CEO Jeff Green said on the call. “It is my understanding that Amazon nearly doubled the supply of Prime Video inventory in the recent months. That creates a number of conflicts.”
For the second quarter, The Trade Desk reported a 19% increase in year-over-year revenue to $694 million, topping the $685 million estimate, according to analysts polled by LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share of 41 cents beat estimates by a penny.
Looking to the third quarter, the Trump administration’s tariffs were also a theme, as the company forecast revenue of at least $717 million, representing growth of 14% at minimum.
“From a macro standpoint, some of the world’s largest brands are absolutely facing pressure and some amount of uncertainty,” Green said. “Some have to respond more than others to tariffs. Many are managing inflation worries and the related pricing that comes with that.”
With Friday’s slump, The Trade Desk shares are now down 54% for the year, while the S&P 500 is up about 9%. The Trade Desk was added to the S&P 500 in June.
