Market Analysis & Investment Strategy - The market has froth, but positive stories overwhelm it, making rational investments viable [2][3] - Insider buying in Eli Lilly (LLY) suggests a positive outlook, leading to a rerating of the stock [5][6] - The market in 2024 is not like the dot-com bubble of 1999-2000, as rational investments still exist [21][24] - Skepticism towards companies buying crypto on margin and consultant companies like Palantir is viewed as irrational; Palantir is considered cheap using the rule of 40 [14][16] Company Performance & Initiatives - Amazon's move to same-day grocery delivery is a disruptive initiative, potentially impacting Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber [3][4] - Charles Schwab experienced a 17% increase in net new assets month over month [7] - Cisco's AI-related orders from webscale customers exceeded $2 billion in fiscal year 2025, more than double the initial target of $1 billion [62] - Universal Technical Institute (UTI) reported weaker than expected new student starts, causing a stock plunge of nearly 19%, but year-to-date starts are up over 14% [27][28][31] Economic Trends & Inflation - Wage deflation, driven by automation and AI, is expected to impact hiring and layoffs in various sectors, including law, accounting, and advertising [109][112] - Companies are hesitant to hire due to the cost of labor and the potential for digitization and automation to replace human workers [103][110] - Amazon's expansion of same-day grocery delivery to 2,300 cities could impact competitors like DoorDash, Instacart, Kroger, and Target [105][106]

We can focus on these topdown numbers from the labor department. This time a way too hot producer price index and before that a cooler consumer price index. Or we can look at the boots on the ground stories from individual companies.The anecdotal side suggests that there have been some layoffs. 25,000 Intel, 15,000 Microsoft, but nothing else that comes close. Now, Intel's problems are well documented.Although they actually may be able to solve them if the government does take a stake in the company. That w ...