The U.S. Treasury announced yesterday that it will at least double its liquidity-supporting buyback operations for Treasury notes and bonds with 10 or more years to maturity. The current per-operation cap of $2 billion will rise to at least $4 billion, effective September 9, 2026, and remains in place through November 4. While very close […]
Cem Karsan is flagging August 21, the monthly options expiration (OPEX) date, as the setup for what he calls a gamma cliff. On August 21st, one of the year’s larger concentrations of monthly options open interest will expire or roll forward. What happens next is worth watching. Options market makers must hedge their risk by […]
Last week, we wrote two short articles within our Commentary summarizing Mark Zuckerberg’s new stance on AI. We were skeptical of his “AI for the people” essay given his track record. Thus, when we saw a recent Bloomberg editorial, Don’t Buy Zuckerberg’s ‘Good Guy of AI’ Act, we thought it was important to present a […]
Friday’s weak retail sales report did more damage to the hawkish case. Sales fell 0.6% in July against expectations for a 0.1% gain. The control group, the piece that feeds directly into GDP, dropped 0.4%. That was its first decline this year. The print landed a week after payrolls fell 23,000 and two days after […]
According to an article published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, more than 40 S&P 500 companies have reported roughly $9.6 billion in tariff refunds. Apple leads at nearly $2.2 billion. Nike follows at $986 million, FedEx at about $800 million, Amazon at $640 million, and GM at $500 million. The timing is awkward. In […]
Nvidia announced an agreement with Wall Street heavies, Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR. The six Wall Street firms will arrange more than $500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure. The firms will create funding vehicles that allow investors to invest money directly in AI data centers in exchange for a share […]
Greg Abel just completed his first full quarter as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, taking the throne from Warren Buffett. In his first earnings announcement, Abel sent strong signals of a strategic pivot. Most important of these, Berkshire repurchased $4.5 billion of its own stock in the second quarter, its largest quarterly buyback since a […]
The Tweet on the right below irresponsibly suggests that if SK Hynix shares double, as Cantor Fitzgerald’s $300 target implies, a 2x leveraged fund like SKHA offers “magnified exposure” to that outcome. Assuming the stock doubles, the leveraged trade ETF sounds like easy money. However, even if Cantor is right and the stock doubles, the […]
The Friday BLS employment report showed the economy lost 23k jobs. Along with last Wednesday’s ADP report (+44k), the two reports suggest the spring pickup in job growth is stalling. Adding to the bad news, the BLS revised May and June jobs down by a combined 103k jobs. The labor market has now averaged a […]