Videos
March 22, 2024 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Videos |
Today’s video is What Powell Said, and What the Market Heard. Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, tried to walk a fine line during Wednesday’s press conference. He said that while inflation is sticky; he’s still confident in a soft landing at 2.0% and that they will cut rates once they confirm that a 2.0% rate is achievable. What the market heard was “we can tolerate higher inflation for longer while still cutting rates, ” and this is backed up by the Fed’s Dot Plot economic projections . The Dot Plot lays out 2-3 cuts in 2024 even though core PCE inflation rates are expected to be at 2.6% at the end of the year–not the target of 2.0%. That 2.0% target will now not likely be reached until the end of 2026, the Fed’s own economic projections say. The market reacted to the news that they heard as “the Fed is no longer insisting on the 2.0% target and will be cutting rates this year,” by hitting its 20th all-time high for 2024. The market heard happy days are here again, and rallied.
March 19, 2024 | Daily JAM, KBWB, Mid Term, Millennial, Videos |
Today’s Quick Pick is Lithium Americas (LAC). Lithium Americas is an American lithium producer, with a big deposit in Thacker Pass that has been going through litigation and delays while struggling to get enough financing with lithium prices down. We’ll likely see a bottom of lithium prices in the second half of 2024 or early 2025, so this is a good time to be getting in near the bottom. Lithium Americas signed a contract with General Motors agreeing that GM would take all the lithium they can produce, the question is, Can they produce it? Recently, the Department of Energy announced they’ll be lending Lithium Americas $2.3 billion to move forward with their processing facility. At the moment, China controls nearly all of the processing facilities for lithium globally and this investment will allow for domestic processing. This loan will cover all their capital costs and enable them to start production. The stock is moving upward, with shares around $6.50 per share. The recent rally has brought the stock back up to the price from December 2023, and the Wall Street consensus is that the stock may hit $11.50 in a year. While that prediction may be a bit ambitious, I think it’s likely we’ll see it reach $9-10, up about a third once they start to actually produce lithium in conjunction with lithium prices going up.
March 18, 2024 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Videos |
Today’s video is Interest Rate Cut Transition Going Well. Well, so far. Until Wednesday, anyway. Last week we had another batch of bad inflation news: the inflation rate has stopped its decline, Â and even crept upward a bit. However, the market hasn’t panicked. Wall Street has moved the goalpost for a rate cut from the upcoming March 20 meeting to the June or July meeting. Last week’s bad news dropped the odds for a rate cut by the June 12 meeting on the CME Fedwatch Tool to 63.1%, down slightly from the previous day. The odds of no move on the June 12 meeting are on their way to 40%. Investors have set their sights on July. This will likely continue to push the market sideways until April when we get a bit of earnings excitement, again, around AI. Consolidation after the rally early in the year isn’t a bad thing for the market, and as long as no one panics, I think we’ll see a relatively smooth transition to the eventual interest rate cuts.Â
March 14, 2024 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, NVDA, QCOM, Top 50 Stocks, Videos |
Today’s Hot Button Moves NOW video is AI Woodstock. Nvidia’s big AI update on March 18 has been dubbed “AI Woodstock” by Bank of America. Nvidia will update its pipeline and prospects for new projects and report on where it sees the AI market going. It will likely create volatility throughout the AI sector as investors try to get out ahead of the company’s projections. Tuesday, Bank of America raised its target price for Nvidia from $925 to $1100 and upped its estimate of the size of the AI accelerator market from under $250 billion to $250-500 billion in 3-5 years. This wide gap in both market size and time makes me a little nervous, but for now we can focus on the next few days. Nvidia will be discussing its new B1000 and N100 chips, ethernet switches, and AI at the Edge for PCs and smartphones. Keep an eye on stocks like Broadcom (AVGO), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Super Micro Computer (SMCI) for reaction to this news. The volatility in the reaction could open up a good place to get in on these AI stocks.
March 12, 2024 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, QCOM, Stock Alerts, Videos |
Today’s Quick Pick is Qualcomm, (QCOM). I always look for product momentum in technology stocks, and Qualcomm’s pipeline is very promising. The company reported a good first quarter for 2024 but I’m focused on growth for their Snapdragon chip which is used in cell phones, cars, and the internet of things. Qualcomm has recently renewed its chip agreements with Apple and Samsung. Samsung’s Galaxy 24 is the first cell phone to include AI technology powered by Snapdragon and sales are up 13% year over year from 2023 and 47% from 2024. It’s likely more companies will be looking to add AI to their phones and I think Qualcomm has a leading position in that market. A new Snapdragon product, X-Elite, will put AI on PCs and is coming out this year. In 2023 the Snapdragon chip was also installed in infotainment modules for 75 new car models and the company’s automotive revenue is up about 12% this quarter. The Internet of Things is growing more slowly but is still growing. Morningstar says the stock is trading at a 22% premium, but I find that to be very, very conservative. While this stock isn’t a bargain at the moment this is a decent time to get in on an AI stock with promising pipeline momentum, and I don’t see it being more reasonable any time soon. I added Qualcomm to my Jubak’s Picks Portfolio on January 15, 2024. The position is up 23.5% since then as of the close on March 12.
March 11, 2024 | AAPL, Daily JAM, GOOG, Top 50 Stocks, Videos |
Today’s video is The Magnificent Five? The Magnificent Seven were the main drivers of market success at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. But what happens when the Magnificent Seven are more like a magnificent Five, or even four? The original Magnificent Seven included Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Nvidia, and Tesla. Both Tesla and Apple have taken major hits largely due to problems with China. China’s regulations have made it harder to sell Apple products in the country in the government’s effort to push domestic goods. Apple sales in China are down 16-17%. in the first six weeks of 2024. This, alongside a Wall Street perception that Apple is behind in AI technology, has brought Apple shares down 12% for 2024. As for Tesla, China is producing massive numbers of cheaper electric vehicles that are increasingly exported globally (with the exception of the United States where high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles limit sales) leaving Tesla down 25% in 2024. Google is also down 5% year to date though it may be too soon to write Alphabet off as “not magnificent” just yet. Both Apple and Tesla are no longer pacing the market and are indeed lagging. Bad thing? Good thing? I’d vote for “good thing.” The rally is beginning to spread out from a handful of big names. The only thing that makes me a bit wary is that so many investors are hoping to make money on speculative moves while the market is moving sideways. Those moves could cause volatility in a market that is otherwise likely to stay steady until we get big news from the Federal Reserve on interest rate cuts in June or so.
March 4, 2024 | Daily JAM, PYPL, Top 50 Stocks, Videos |
Today’s Quick Pick is Stripe. Stripe isn’t public yet but will likely go public in late 2024 or in 2025. This is an alert to prepare for this IPO. Stripe started in 2011 and is the “Paypal of its time.” I use both platforms and I find Stripe the more powerful and more user-friendly payment platform. Stripe  recently did a private, series H deal that valued the company at $65 billion. Paypal, its major competitor (along with Square), has a market cap of $65 billion. I think this will be a very hot, oversubscribed IPO share you can make a quick profit by flipping the shares on IPO day. The recent Series H offer means that Stripe probably won’t go public until the last half of 2024, at the earliest, or more likely 2025. Which give you time to get your ducks in a row in order to put in a bid for some shares in the offering.  Talk to your broker now to ensure you sign all the right paperwork and meet eligibility requirements for IPO offers. If you get that started now, you’ll be able to place an order for IPO shares when they’re available. Stripe revenue is at $14 billion with about 19% of the market share versus 42% for PaylPal. The company has just turned EBITDA profitable, a major milestone.  This is an appealing IPO and something to start preparing for even though it may be a little ways down the road.
February 29, 2024 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, Videos, Volatility |
Today’s Hot Button Moves NOW video is Buy Viking Therapeutics (VKTX). Last week I suggested that you buy GLP-1 drug stocks like Eli Lilly (LLY) or Novo Nordisk (NVO). This class of diabetes and weight loss drugs is growing rapidly, with $36.5 billion in sales in 2023. Viking Therapeutics, a development-stage biotech company, recently announced Phase 2 trial results for its compound VK2735. This drug has the potential to be the best in its class when it hits the market. The company still has to go through Phase 3 trials and approval, but the data show VK2735 to be more effective at weight loss than its competitors. It could also be one of the few drugs of its kind to be available orally. The current round of trials shows that the drug will need to be injected less frequently than competitors. The company trades with a market cap of $9 billion (in contrast to Lilly’s $720 billion market cap) and is still small enough that it could be bought before the expensive process of taking a drug to market. (Although the company recently raised a secondary offering that would advance marketing plans.) I would buy this up to $100 a share and expect it to continue to zoom as more good news, I expect, on the oral version gets released this quarter. I am adding the stock to my online portfolios today, Thursday, February 29. You can find a write up on this pick on my subscription JubakAM.com and free JubakPicks.com sites.
February 22, 2024 | Daily JAM, Videos |
Today’s video is Doldrums from now through April.. Doldrums are, “a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or depression” or, in nautical terms, the places where tradewinds converged and ships were left stagnant on the ocean until a storm or the wind picked up to get the vessel back in motion. The recent stock plunge of 26% from Palo Alto Networks (PANW) certainly doesn’t feel like a market that is stagnant or waiting for a change in the winds, but I think that’s what we’ll see going forward. After Nvidia’s report, there aren’t any big earnings reports expected until April and we’ll likely be moving sideways until the Fed sets the market sailing with a rate cut. The odds of the Fed not doing anything at the March meeting according to the CME Fedwatch are up to 90%. That rate cut expectation has now moved solidly to June or July with the CME Fedwatch polling at 75% for June and 90% for June or July. Until those rate cuts happen, and with little to no market-moving earnings reports expected in the months between, the stock market will be drifting in the doldrums while we wait for the wind to pick up.
February 20, 2024 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, LLY, Videos |
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February 16, 2024 | Daily JAM, Dividend Income, Videos |
Today’s Quick Pick is Cheniere Energy (LNG). Cheniere is a liquified gas supplier  and the stock was down about 7.5-8% this year. Much of that drop was a reaction to the Biden administration’s decision to delay permits for new LNG export facilities in order to put pressure on the industry to decrease their methane emissions. However, this is essentially a non-issue for Cheniere since the company’s most recent expansion had already been permitted. The company is on track to go from a capital-intensive/debt heavy stage to putting billions into new sites and export facilities to a generator of free cash flow from those completed facilities.  The current dividend is only 1.05% but the total yield, (dividends plus stock buybacks) is about 6.05%. Management has said they believe there will be enough free cash flow to raise the dividend rate by 10% a year from now until the mid to late 20s. In my opinion, demand for LNG is shifting as markets like Japan and China are transitioning to nuclear or solar and wind, but there is still growing demand from places like India, which is looking to transition away from coal. Cheniere is predicting 3% annual revenue growth and I think that’s reasonable and enough to keep the cash flow and dividends moving. I will be Cheniere to my Dividend Portfolio on those future yield prospects.
February 15, 2024 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Videos |
Today’s video is Inflation: Stickier for Longer. The market is now beginning to suspect that the Fed has a last mile problem. The CPI numbers from Tuesday weren’t terrible, but they weren’t as low as the market hoped. Headline inflation was at 3.1% annual rate and core inflation was 3.9%–markedly better than the past high of 9%, but not quite hitting the 2.9% for headline inflation that economists were looking for. The miss has finished a flip in sentiment about a March rate cut. The CME FedWatch poll in January had March rate cut odds at 90% likely, now, just a month later, the odds of no action are up to nearly 90%. Only about a third of investors believe there will be a rate cut in May with odds of no action up to 61%. The calendar is being pushed out to June or July for cuts from the Fed. This has resulted in bond yields going back up, around 4.3% on the ten year Treasury, and stocks going down a bit. There is a hope out there that the CPI numbers were a January blip, but if you look at the breakdown of the inflation numbers, it seems clear that inflation is just plain sticky. The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank index that looks at the sectors that tend to be sticky and how much they’re influencing the overall inflation rate shows that prices in those sticky inflation categories have stopped and that they are a major factor keeping inflation higher than hoped. . Additionally, while there’s been a big drop in goods prices, the price of services has not gone down nearly as much. The super core inflicts number, which looks a prices in the services sector after taking out the cost of shelter has stalled. All this to say, we’ve got good evidence that this last mile from 3% to 2% on inflation could take a while.
