🇺🇸 The Nail Salon Boom

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🇺🇸 The S&P 500 ($SPX) has had -21% fall and a 34% rally to a series of all-time highs so far this year…

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🌐 Change in consensus forecast for GDP growth in 2026 (from Jan 2025).

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🇬🇾🇦🇲🇨🇩🇰🇬 The fastest growing trading nations…

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🇺🇸 New houses are now cheaper than existing houses…

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🇺🇸 The big move in solar energy ($TAN) against overall energy ($XLE) is the largest two-day gain (13.8%) in the ratio since 2013.

Will solar repeat its Trump I performance? It’s up 30% since Inauguration Day, but it hit +1,272% back then…

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🇺🇸 Beyond Meat ($BYND), the purveyors of the freaky plant-based pseudo-meat, opened $46 on May 2nd, 2019 & rose 411% in just shy of 3 months, closing at $234.90 on July 26th.

Since then it has fallen 98.9% to $2.53/share…

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🇳🇿🇺🇸🇮🇳 Global Equity Forward P/E

New Zealand wins with an extreme forward valuation. The United States & India are neck-and-neck for 2nd & 3rd, followed by Australia & Sweden. China, Greece, Japan, and Taiwan have historically had extreme valuations.

Turkey has the lowest forward P/E, followed by Hungary & Brazil, and then Poland & South Korea (two of the best performing stock markets this year).

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🇨🇳 Chinese internet stocks are making yet another foray in this critical resistance region.

Financial stimulus, low bond yields, & mandated buybacks are undergirding many of these equities, and the base on $KWEB looks technically strong.

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🇺🇸 Tesla is up 8.9% this month. Technically, it’s been all over this dynamic resistance of late.

Which way will $TSLA’s triangle break?

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🇺🇦 In a recent poll, Gallup asked Ukrainians: which of the following statements about the war with Russia comes closest to your personal views?

🔽 24% chose “Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war” (down from a 2/3rds supermajority in the early part of the war, the hawks lost their majority in mid-2023 and now only a quarter—mostly located deep in Western Ukraine—wish to continue the fight)

🔼 69% believe “Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible” (interestingly, this position represented about a quarter of the population early in the war, but now 7 in 10 Ukrainians want a negotiated peace)

⏹ 7% refused or said they “didn’t know” (5-10% range, indecision/refusal peaked in 2023-4 and dropping since)

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🇺🇸🇩🇪🇯🇵🇮🇹🇪🇸🇬🇧

30-year government bond yields in the US, Germany, Japan, UK, Italy and Spain, in percent interest.

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🇺🇸 Action in the stock indices turned negative today (except in the $DJI, which eked out the slightest of positive returns while the $NDX took a beating).

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🇦🇷🇩🇴🇬🇹🇵🇦 What’s the growth outlook in Latin America this year?

⬆️Best Outlooks: Argentina leads with 5.5% expected growth, followed by the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Panama, and Paraguay

⬇️Worst Outlooks: Venezuela lags with -4% growth anticipated, followed by Mexico, who is treadunf water, and Bolivia around 1%.

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🇺🇸 The Dallas Cowboys are still the most valuable football team in America…

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🇺🇸 Palantir’s valuation is a serious outlier. It doesn’t mean it’s totally outlandish.

With America moving into state capitalism and future administrations being unlikely to roll it back, shady contractors like $PLTR are likely going to be rolling in it.

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🇺🇸 The CNN Fear & Greed Index slips back into neutral territory (55).

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🇺🇸 The cumulative speculative short on American small caps has become enormous.

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🇺🇸 The Dollar Index ($DXY) remains strongly inversely correlated with the price of gold.

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🇮🇱🇵🇸 According to Digital Information World, the Gaza “War” has the “weakest protections” for journalists, which have been killed in higher numbers than the much larger, longer, and more evenly balanced conflicts listed here (the World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, the Ukraine War, etc.).

For example, in most wars, a vest labeled “journalist” or “media” in big black block letters is a protection. In Gaza, it’s a target. Generally the death of a journalist is an unfortunate accident; as far as Israel is concerned, it’s a bullseye. UNESCO has confirmed at least 47 of these were killed while actively reporting.

The Committee to Protect Journalists notes this is the deadliest period in their record & that deliberate targeting of media is a violation of international law. Reporters Without Borders said Gaza was the scene of a “massacre of journalists.” The Independent Commission for Human Rights is calling for ICC investigations.

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🇺🇸 Two-thirds of the investible economy is set to be unlocked for 401(k) savings by a new US executive order opening up private markets to workers.

This is a good thing overall. It will reduce the concentration of capital in a handful of public megacaps (Apple stock is treated like a savings account these days, and that’s an insane product of current regulations & standard financial advice).

There are, however, concerns about transparency risk (these companies often update valuations quarterly), more substantial & multi-layered fees, and less liquidity. Informed consent must be integrated into many applications of this…

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