jeffb

@grassosteve So true

Good traders live between confidence and self-loathing day to day. Lean too far into either one and you self-destruct.

@WOLF_Financial He’s brilliant

JENSEN HUANG WAS JUST ASKED IF HE FEELS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY AI WILL TRANSFORM HUMAN LABOR His answer was a masterclass in why this revolution will be different. Then he ended with this line: "Everybody will have to use AI because if you don't use AI you gonna lose your job to somebody who does." His full reasoning: "Our job is not to wrangle a spreadsheet. Our job is not to type into a keyboard. Our job is generally more meaningful than that." "AI will drive productivity, revenue growth, and therefore more hiring." "It's for certain everybody's jobs will change as a result of AI. Some jobs will disappear obviously. Every single industrial revolution some jobs are just gone, but a whole bunch of new jobs are created." The thesis: AI is the next industrial revolution. Adapt or get replaced.

@CryptoTice_ What he did was show weakness.

BREAKING: Trump just said something nobody expected. "$18 trillion. When I travel I make a lot of money for the country." "Not for me. I don't care." "I have a higher purpose." "I have plenty of money. I don't want money." "I want money for the country." The man flying to Beijing with 30 of the most powerful CEOs on earth. Jensen Huang. Tim Cook. Elon Musk. Larry Fink. $18 trillion in deals being negotiated. And the President says he doesn't want a dollar of it. Love him or hate him. No president in modern history has walked into rooms like these. With stakes this high. And said those words. $18 trillion. For the country. Not for him. Whether you believe it or not. The deals are real. And the markets will price them in.

@DanielTNiles Must read Sunday posts… will you think about recapping the week in the markets on Friday before the close. It would help a ton.

S&P +0.1% last wk, masks the troubles under the surface with oil +10% to $105 & 2/30 yr bond yields +18 bps. I said last wk in multiple interviews that either oil/ylds are wrong or the stock mkt is. Much like on Friday, I am expecting more convergence this wk. Both April CPI & PPI came in higher than expected last week stoking the fears that the rising oil prices from the Iran war which started in late February is now impacting inflation. In addition, there was some troubling developments in the semiconductor sector which has spearheaded the recent 18% rally in the S&P with a 69% gain in the SOX index from March 30th to Thursday May 14th. The Korean Kospi, which had been up 89% ytd through Thursday led by memory manufacturers Samsung Electronics +143% and Hynix +201% had its biggest intraday spread in history on Friday which triggered a temporary trading halt. The Kospi from an intra-day high of +0.8% finished down 6.1% with Samsung/Hynix closing down 6.6%/5.9%. This week, we will get some important earnings releases from $TGT on Wednesday and $WMT on Thursday with combined sales of ~$850B on how the consumer is handling the increase in gas prices. Most analysts are expecting solid results. This would match statements from the credit card companies and larger banks which indicated a resilient consumer when they reported. However, $MCD in reporting their quarterly earnings in early May, talked about a slowdown they were seeing in the lower-end consumer $NVDA results on Wednesday will speak to the health of the AI trade. While I expect another beat & raise quarter, the stock has declined each of the past 3 quarters in reaction to earnings the next day. The 5.5% decline in reaction to their January quarter results where revenues were 3% above consensus and they guided 7% above for the next quarter was particularly noteworthy. The stock was also up 43% from 3/30-5/14. This is a very different risk vs reward than on April 5th when I wrote "$NVDA and $GOOGL remain my favorite ways to play agentic AI while the server microprocessor vendors are key new beneficiaries from the increase in orchestration needed." As an aside, Google was up 47% from 3/30-5/14. From a bigger picture basis, the number one thing I am focused on when investing is risk vs reward. I posted on X on March 31st “History May not Repeat Itself but it Often Does Rhyme” comparing 2026 to 97/98 where macro scares caused the S&P to have intra-year declines of 11% and 19% but finished the years up 31% and 27%. I also mentioned again the benefits of Agentic AI “So names like $INTC and $AMD should benefit.” End of March was a great risk vs reward for investing. As I stated in interviews last week, however, the risk versus reward over the short-term is now very different. The S&P bounced 18% from March 30th through Thursday May 14th led by the Semiconductor Index that surged 69% but: 1) oil has risen to $105 versus $84 on April 17th when a resolution seemed more likely and versus the mid-$60s before the Iran war started 2) bond yields are at new highs for the yr with the 30 yr firmly above 5% and 2 yr firmly above 4% and up over 20 bps and 35 bps since April 17th 3) recent data seems to indicate that rising oil prices is seeping into inflation Until oil and bond yields look like they are going to come back down for good reasons versus bad ones like demand destruction, I have little interest in getting aggressive on stocks. This is why on my podcast with @WilfredFrost on Tuesday I said “hold more cash.” x.com/DanielTNiles/s… Longer-term, I still believe two of the most powerful forces driving the market remain intact 1) AI capex now up ~70% vs ~30% at the start of the year driven by the advent of Agentic AI in early 2026 2) the desire for easy money policies by new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh though his hands are seemingly tied at the moment by rising inflation metrics Mid-term elections are also coming up in November and if oil prices are not down by then, historical precedence says the incumbent party is going to suffer significant losses. This is a powerful incentive to resolve the Iran situation sooner rather than later. In summary, in the near-term the risk vs reward for stocks seems poor unlike in late March. My key to when it makes sense to get more aggressive again rests with oil and bond yields given 10 out of the last 12 recession were preceded by a sustained surge in oil prices.

@RepJackKimble You’re out of touch

Just a friendly warning. We don’t even make $200k per year in Congress despite working nearly 140 days. If we aren’t properly compensated, a lot of us will go to the private sector and you will be left with some real idiots in Congress.

@rationalyankee No team cheats and cheated like the Yankees.

Altuve was the face of the 2017 Astros. He sat in that clubhouse every night, watched teammates bang trash cans, won an MVP and a ring off the back of it and said nothing. For years. Not until reporters dragged it into the light. “Innocent” is a word you use for a kid who didn’t know what was happening. Altuve knew. He profited. He stayed quiet. Altuve let the entire sport eat the consequences while he kept the trophies. I don’t think he gets enough criticism for it. He’s still likely to get into the HOF. I don’t think any player, manager or coach from the 2017 Astros should be allowed to even buy a ticket to the HOF, let alone get inducted into it.

Go ahead and announce the 10/1 stock split $SNDK

@DougKass Agreed

I am a huge fan of Dan Niles. Been a fan since he was an analyst. Thinks outside the box, non consensus and transparent. Admits his screwups. We need more of him... @dougkass

@JeremyBranham Hell no

Should the Astros induct Randy Johnson into the Astros Hall of Fame?

@AstrosFuture Great read

Yes… I did a complete 10 round mock draft for the #Astros. Check it out! astrosfuture.com/2026/05/astros…

Dan Niles just makes everything easier.

@Sam_Badawi @DanielTNiles @DanielTNiles is a must listen… must read.

Dan Niles @DanielTNiles on CNBC basically compared the current AI buildout to the internet boom of the late 1990s, pointing out that even after massive gains, the $QQQ still delivered multiple additional years of upside before the cycle finally peaked. The important takeaway is that AI infrastructure spending tied to names like $NVDA, $AMD, $AVGO, and hyperscalers including $AMZN, $MSFT, and $GOOGL may still be much earlier in the cycle than many investors think despite concerns around valuation and concentration. You can absolutely have bubble-like conditions forming while the underlying infrastructure buildout, enterprise adoption, and compute demand continue accelerating higher for several more years. I also played this clip and discussed it further on yesterday’s The Solid Report.

@DanielTNiles Must read every Sunday.

W/ Oil -6% last wk, the S&P gained 2% led by semis +11%. Memory & CPUs surged helped by $INTC +25% $AAPL +5% news, $AMD +26% earnings & reports of Anthropic ARR imminently reaching $45B from $9B at the end of 2025. Some solid software earnings drove $IGV +5%. On the negative side, oil is only down to the mid-$90s and “love taps” to quote President Trump are happening between Iran and the US. But his characterization of these military exchanges shows his desire to de-escalate the war before his meeting this upcoming week with President Xi around trade and Iran among other topics. While no “grand bargain” is expected, significant progress should occur. With US mid-terms coming up, President Trump will want some trade momentum going into that along with lower oil prices. Lower oil prices is one of my highest conviction ideas between now and early November for that reason. Technically the market is overbought by several measures led by the Semiconductor index which is now up 66% YTD. But there is no fundamental reason barring oil remaining at these levels that should lead to a significant sell-off. The twin drivers of the stock market since the end of 2022 remain: 1) Easy money- Kevin Warsh should be taking over as Chairman of the Fed this Friday with a desire to cut rates in the future by focusing on trimmed mean PCE at 2.4% vs core PCE at 3.2% plus the deflationary impact of AI and 2) the AI infrastructure buildout continuing- Capex growth for the hyperscalers for CY26 started the year closer to 30% rose to 60% following Q4 earnings and is now at 70% driven by Agentic AI. In looking for pitfalls, I am increasingly wondering which companies get hurt by the rapid expansion of AI token usage at corporations. $UBER recently talked about blowing through their entire AI budget in the first 4 months of the year. Fortunately they managed through this with their stock flattish last week but others may not be so fortunate. My belief is headcount within corporations, consulting fees to IT services firms and vertical software applications is where the bulk of the reductions will occur to offset rising AI bills from firms like Anthropic. Every CEO wants to show how their AI spend is helping their ROI, much like with the hyperscalers and their capex forecasts. Last week, $NET (-10%), $UPWK (-16%), $COIN (+5%) and $BILL (+7%) among others talked about workforce reductions partially due to AI in their Q1 earnings calls. There were varying impacts on their stock prices depending on the resultant view on future earnings. $DDOG (up a staggering 42% last week) and $FTNT (up 32%) had solid beat and raise quarters and made their case for why AI would benefit and not hurt them. This helped drive the rally in IGV which is still down 14% YTD despite being up 5% last week. Given the rapid ramp in revenues at both Anthropic and OpenAI ($6B in ARR at the beginning of 2025, $20B at the end of 2025 and the most recent number at $24B), I still think it is too early to call the bottom on software companies in general not being eaten by AI though I believe the current rally could extend further. On a macro basis, $MCD (-3.8% last week) talked about the low end consumer being impacted by higher gas prices on their earnings call this past week. The longer oil prices stay at these levels, the more likely it is that these type of statements will become more common. The comments by the Exxon CEO earlier in the month about oil prices are worth keeping in mind even in the event of a resolution to the war, "If you look at the unprecedented disruption... the market hasn't seen the full impact of that yet. There’s more to come if the Strait remains closed." 30 year yields breaching 5% last week and 10yr yields hitting a new high YTD at 4.44% are a bit foreboding as to the future path of inflation. Treasury yields, oil prices and stock prices are not telling the same story right now. My belief is that treasury yields and oil prices both decline but markets can “stay irrational” for a long time. Best of luck in the week ahead and Happy Mother’s Day!

@MarcRyanOnAir @PCreighton1 The guy was stealing signs. It wasn’t about the score.

When Detroit signed Framber, I was informed of the downside from a colleague in Houston: “He mentally loses it when things aren’t going well.” This is 100% intentional and Bush League. Mentally weak. Don’t tip your pitches, Framber. That’s on YOU. #DNMW

@DanielTNiles Always a must read

In previewing the Mag7 results last Sunday, I wrote about my concerns given the large rally coming into earnings but that Google was my favorite long-term. In looking at the results, Google did in fact perform the best and gained 12% last week while the S&P gained 1% and the other four Mag7 names that reported declined 2% on average. Estimates for AI capex growth for 2026 for the five biggest spenders which started the year close to 30%, which moved to 60% post Q4 results are now at 70% following the guidance this past week on earnings results. A quick summary of how to think of hyperscaler results were if ROIC was good, then the stock did well. In other words, if capex went then operating income estimates had to as well for the stock to be fine. $GOOGL increased capex but Google Cloud revenue accelerated from 48% y/y growth in Q4 to 63% growth y/y in Q1. They clearly had the best ROIC of the group with a solid revenue beat and even bigger EPS beat with forward estimates going up. The stock was up 10% in reaction on Thursday. $AMZN maintained capex but AWS growth “only” accelerated from 24% to 28% & they guided slightly below consensus for operating profit for the June quarter though guided revenue above. As a result, it is not surprising that the stock was up 1% in reaction on Thursday. $MSFT guided June qtr revenue below the street despite guiding capex above what investors expected. Azure growth only increased from 38% growth to 39% growth. In addition they talked about a transition underway from per-seat to hybrid seat-plus-usage business models, impacting future commercial bookings. This feeds into the “AI eating software” narrative. As a result, the stock declined 4% in reaction on Thursday. $META guided revenues inline for Q2 but raised capex guidance. Investors worry about them overspending given they do not have a leading LLM or a public cloud model like the big three hyperscalers above . They also reported the first decline in Daily Active Users sequentially for their entire family of apps in history. This did occur for just the Facebook app in Q4 of 2021 but this was following the ramp during Covid. As a result, it is not surprising the stock declined 9% in reaction on Thursday. $AAPL had upside to the March quarter and guided revenues to grow 14-17% y/y for the June quarter versus consensus of 9% growth. Gross margins which were a big concern due to rising memory prices were only guided about a half a percent below consensus for June. The two notable changes are the company dramatically increased R&D (+34% y/y) to help them catch up in AI and 2) they will no longer be net cash neutral which will reduce returns to shareholders. But this may not be a bad thing if they use the extra cash to make acquisitions that enable them to catch up on a technological basis. As a result, the stock rose 3% in reaction on Friday. Looking forward, Google remains my favorite name of the Magnificent 7 given they have the full AI stack and good ROIC on their AI spend. A foldable iPhone with AI enhanced Siri capabilities could drive a nice Apple upgrade cycle in 2027. Finally Amazon benefits from AI & robotics increasing the value of their massive physical infrastructure and should help increase the growth rate of AWS. From a bigger picture perspective, I wrote on March 31st, "History may not repeat itself but it often does Rhyme." I was bullish despite the S&P decline on the Iran war because following the macro scares in 1997/98 which led to a 11% and 19% intra-year decline in the S&P, the years ultimately finished up 31% and 27% respectively, driven by years 3/4 of the internet buildout. I felt 2026 would follow the same path because the Iran war was man made and with the US mid-terms coming up, the desire would be not to have this last too long. Much like in 1997/98 with the internet buildout, the underlying economy could remain strong in 2026 due to the advent of Agentic driving the AI buildout while a new chairman of the Fed was picked largely because he wanted to cut rates. With the S&P now at all-time record highs, despite risks of a small near-term correction due to the overbought technical nature of the market, I still see easy money and AI being the dual drivers of this market over the longer-term with the Iran war closer to the end than the beginning. Best of luck in the week ahead.

So many fake posts.

@michaelschwab13 @SportsTalk790 He said the same about Bregman, Tucker,…

"Constant internal discussions about Brown, Peña and other guys we would like to lock up" Dana Brown on the possibility of extending Hunter Brown or Jeremy Peña. From @SportsTalk790

@AstrosFansUK It’s Yordan

Knee-jerk reaction to a tiny sample size, but what if it, er, was the hitting coaches, after all?

@BenOndaTop 😂

What you mean? This was the moment everything changed. I think a THANK YOU would be more appropriate.

@TheAstrosLocker I’m not worthy. You are correct sir.

@jeffbarati Used 6, technically. Sinker cutter 4 seam sweeper change and curve.

Time to see what Lance has left in the tank. Velocity needs to be around 95 and he has to trust the fastball to set up the breaking stuff. If he gives you 4 encouraging innings tonight I think you take that as something to build off of. The leash shortens with any bad start.