DHUnplugged #777: Bifurcation

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Warm-Up
- NEW CTP for IBIT
- Under/Over - Looks like the OVER
- Presidential PARDONS and A King's EVICTION
- All Excited - Making headway on the Deficit !

Markets
- DJIA hits new ATH - after big moves last week - Buyers stepped in (again)
- NASDAQ - lagging as AI trade is questioned
- THEREFORE - what is happening is a simple rotation again - ALL IN!

Just back from a wedding in NJ - Did some Apple picking, hot cider and donuts!

Pardon Me...
- President Donald Trump has pardoned a long list of his political allies for their support or involvement in plans to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to the Department of Justice’s Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin.
- Several others (20+) were pardoned as well including some that plead guilty.

Over the Pond
- King Charles III on Thursday stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Buckingham Palace said.
- After the king’s rare move, which follows years of shameful scandals, he will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and not as a prince, and he will have to vacate his Royal Lodge mansion near Windsor Castle.

Debt
- The U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet.
- It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year.
- “During his first eight months in office, President Trump has reduced the deficit by $350 billion compared to the same period in 2024 by cutting spending and boosting revenue,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, adding that the administration would pursue robust economic growth, lower inflation, tariff revenue, lower borrowing costs and cuts to waste, fraud and abuse.
- Petersen Foundation: “Along with increasing debt, you get higher interest costs, which are now the fastest growing part of the budget,” Peterson added. “We spent $4 trillion on interest over the last decade, but will spend $14 trillion in the next ten years. Interest costs crowd out important public and private investments in our future, harming the economy for every American.”
- Debt Growing by $69,000 per second over the the past year...

Stock New - BIG

Softbank
- Softbank sells entire stake in NVDA - $5.83 Billion
- To soften the blow, they said that it as because they are using it to redeploy further into AI - OpenAi to be specific
- Also sold part of T-Moblie and using margin loan against ARM to fund the $22.5 BILLION investment in OpenAI
- “This should not be seen, in our view, as a cautious or negative stance on Nvidia, but rather in the context of SoftBank needing at least $30.5bn of capital for investments in the Oct-Dec quarter, including $22.5bn for OpenAI and $6.5bn for Ampere,” Rolf Bulk, equity research analyst at New Street Research, told CNBC.
- IMPORTANT SO MARKETS DO NOT GET SPOOKED: ?[SoftBank] made a point of saying that it wasn’t any view on NVIDIA. ... At the end of the day, they are using the money to invest in other AI related companies,” he said.

Coreweave Earnings
- The provider of infrastructure for artificial intelligence companies, reported better-than-expected third-quarter revenue on Monday, but the company delivered disappointing full-year guidance.
- The company reported a net loss of $110 million, narrowing from about $360 million in the same quarter last year.
- Problem at one of their data centers - basically they are not up and running at potential
- Stock dropped 15% (Stock ran up to $185 in June and now at $88

MasterCard and Visa
-  Visa and Mastercard announced a revised $38 billion settlement with merchants who accused the card networks of charging too much to accept their credit cards, hoping to satisfy a judge who rejected a smaller accord as inadequate.
- Monday's settlement would end 20 years of litigation in which businesses accused Visa, Mastercard and banks of conspiring to violate U.S. antitrust laws, including through the card networks' collection of "swipe fees."
- The settlement calls for Visa and Mastercard to lower swipe fees, which averaged 2.35% in 2024 and typically range from 2% to 2.5%, by 0.1 percentage point for five years.
-- Retail Merchants Associations still not happy about this...
- Merchants would also get more options to impose surcharges when people pay by card, including an "unfettered" ability to charge up to 3%, according to a court filing.
- STILL they charge 20%-35% (The highest variable rate advertised for a specific card is 36% on the First PREMIER® Bank Mastercard Credit Card.)

A Head Scratcher
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Thursday that the artificial intelligence startup is on track to generate more than $20 billion in annualized revenue run rate this year, with plans to grow to hundreds of billions in sales by 2030.
- The company has inked more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure deals in recent months to try and build out the data centers it says are needed to meet growing demand.
- Question: It is almost impossible for companies with a long track record, stable business and known clientele to project out one year as things change so fast in the economy. How can a recent startup with new technology that is unknown the use in the future project out 5 years?

Tesla
- The vote is in and Elon got his pay package!
- Update: Elon Musk is the richest person in the world as of November 2025, with a net worth that has approached and briefly crossed $500 billion

Economy
K Shape
- U.S. consumer sentiment slumped to near a 3-1/2-year low in early November as households across the political spectrum worried about the economic fallout from the longest government shutdown in history, which has caused disruptions ranging from food benefit payments to grounded flights.
- The current level is closing on on the worst in 20 years
- Democrats are really in the dumps, while Republicans are upbeat (91 vs 33)  - High earners happy - lower earnings very unhappy.
- For the economy? Consider that the top 20% of households by income drive 40% of consumer spending

Employment
- Job cuts for October totaled 153,074, a 183% surge from September and 175% higher than the same month a year ago.
- It was the highest level for any October since 2003 and has been the worst year for layoffs since 2009.
- Challenger reports the highest level of layoffs coming from the technology sector amid a time of restructuring due to AI integration. Companies in the sector announced 33,281 cuts, nearly six times the level in September.
- In total, companies have announced 1.1 million cuts this year, a 65% increase from a year ago and the highest level since the Covid pandemic year of 2020.

Rate Cuts?
- Miran says half-point cut ‘appropriate’ for December, but Fed should at least reduce by a quarter point (What a tool!)
- “If you’re making data for what, if you’re making policy for what the data are now, you are backward looking, because it will take 12 to 18 months for that to hit the economy. So you need to make policy now based on where you think the economy is going to be a year to a year and a half from now.”
- SOOOOOO - he thinks the economy is slowing over the next 12-18 months? Doesn't that conflict with how great Kevin Hasset

Even so.....Can't be all bad...
- Levi's will sell its new line of $300 jeans in more stores next year as it looks to boost growth by tapping into strong demand for premium denim, Chief Financial and Growth Officer Harmit Singh told Reuters.
- Launched in Asia earlier this year, and in around two dozen stores in Europe and the U.S. since September, the Blue Tab range of higher quality jeans and shirts is part of an ongoing push to broaden the Levi's brand and attract more women.
- In Europe, Blue Tab jeans sell for between about 250 and 350 euros ($290-410), compared with between 70 and 130 euros for its Red Tab line. Blue Tab jackets sell for around 700 euros.

EV Hangover
- Ford Motor is reportedly considering permanently ending production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck amid mounting losses and more challenging market conditions for EVs.
- Ford's President, when asked last month by media about Lightning production potentially ending, said the company’s main priority was gas-powered models.
- F-150 Lightning sales this year through October are roughly level compared with a year earlier at only 24,577 units. Since going on sale in 2022 in the U.S., Ford has sold less than 100,000 F-150 Lightning models.

SAD NEWS
- A 208-year-old publication that farmers, gardeners and others keen to predict the weather have relied on for guidance will be publishing for the final time.
- Farmers' Almanac said Thursday that its 2026 edition will be its last, citing the growing financial challenges of producing and distributing the book in today's “chaotic media environment.” Access to the online version will cease next month.
- The Maine-based publication, not to be confused with the even older Old Farmer’s Almanac in neighboring New Hampshire, was first printed in 1818. For centuries, it's used a secret formula based on sunspots, planetary positions and lunar cycles to generate long-range weather forecasts.

Bad News For Stock Insiders?
- Nancy Pelosi said she will not seek reelection to Congress.
- Pelosi, 85, has served in the House for nearly four decades, presiding over the passage of major legislation and serving as a leading opposition figure against President Donald Trump.

Thoughts?
- A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday cleared the way for Florida to enforce a law restricting real estate and land purchases by Chinese citizens, rejecting claims it violates federal law and discriminates against Asians.
- The law prohibits individuals who are "domiciled" in China and are not U.S. citizens or green card holders from purchasing real estate or land in Florida. It allows non-tourist visa holders and asylum recipients to purchase a single residential property as big as two acres that is at least five miles (8 km) from any military installation.
- Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said when he signed the law in 2023 that it would help protect Americans from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

More China
- Apple has confirmed that it removed the popular gay dating apps Blued and Finka from its Chinese iOS store in compliance with an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China.
- “Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only,” the company said, though they clarified that the apps had already been unavailable in other countries.
- Grindr, a popular gay dating app from the U.S., was removed from the iOS store in 2022, days after the Cyberspace Administration of China began a crackdown on content it considered illegal and inappropriate.

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