DHUnplugged #731: Stacking $$$

Big - Run - Crypto Pops and Drops Stacking the Admin with $$$ Peeps HUGE Baseball Deal Equifax Class Action - Finally a payout? PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter DONATIONS ? Thank you for all who gave to the Thanksgiving Holiday Campaign... Warm-Up - Big - Run - Crypto Pops and Drops - Stacking the Admin with $$$ Peeps - Baseball Deal - Equifax Class Action - Finally a payout? Markets - Employment Report - This week's CPI and PPI Data - Santa Rally - Could be just be a couple weeks away - - Trump Limericks (AI) ANNOUNCING the CTP Contestants for 2024 CTP Cup Michael Bowling Kirk Saathoff Eric Harvey Chad Laajala Tim Dewey Paul Kinder Anson Brady (2023 CTP Cup Winner) ---Emails have gone out... Regarding AMD - BofA Securities downgraded Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to Neutral from Buy, lower CY25/26 pf-EPS by 6%/8%ta $4.43/55.51, about -13%/-23% below consensus 55.09/57.11. Two factors: 1) Higher competitive risks in Al against best-of-breed NVDA's dominance, and growing cloud preference for custom chips from MRVL/AVGO. limiting AMD's market share gain potential, and 2) Potential for 1H'25E PC processor correction, after ~4O% HoH surge in AMD's 2H'24E client PC sales.  Shares are down 3%. Oracle Earnings - Oracle (ORCL -8%) is lower following its Q2 (Nov) earnings report last night. - The company reported a slight EPS miss, its second miss in the past three quarters. - Revenue rose 8.6% yr/yr to $14.06 bln, but that was also a bit light of analyst expectations. - The Q3 (Feb) adjusted EPS guidance of $1.47-1.51 was also lower than expected. - Oracle guided to Q3 revs of +7-9% (+9-11% CC), which we compute as $14.21-14.48 bln, which was also light, partly due to FX. Google Chip - Releases the Willow quantum computing chip - Google has unveiled a new chip which it claims takes five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world's fastest super computers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete. - However experts say Willow is, for now, a largely experimental device, meaning a quantum computer powerful enough to solve a wide range of real-world problems is still years - and billions of dollars - away. MLB Deal - The Mets on Sunday agreed to sign Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract, multiple sources said, by far the largest pact in Major League Baseball history. - The deal, which the Mets have not confirmed because it’s pending a physical, contains a $75 million signing bonus, an opt-out after five seasons and no deferred money. - The Mets will have the ability to void Soto’s opt-out clause after the 2029 season if they boost the average annual value of the final 10 years of his deal from $51 million to $55 million, according to a source. - In that case, the overall deal would be for 15 years and $805 million - Right and Left Fielder - with .288 Batting average - In 2024, he hit 41 homers and had 129 walks. It was his fourth season with at least 25 home runs and 125 walks. That's fourth-most in MLB history, behind only Barry Bonds (10 such seasons), Babe Ruth (10) and Ted Williams (eight). China - Back in the Spotlight - Disinflation again and profits slowing - China's inflation drops - China's producer price index declined for the 26th month. Producer inflation fell by 2.5% year on year in November... - Sunday announcement - China's leaders on Monday pledged "more proactive" fiscal measures and "moderately" looser monetary policy next year to boost domestic consumption, according to an official readout of a key policy meeting that outlined upcoming economic priorities.