The MasterFeeds

Venezuela’s constitutional clock starts ticking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 6 Jan 2026 01:08:00 +0100

In a ruling issued Sunday, the country's rubber-stamp Supreme Tribunal of Justice decided to treat Maduro's current absence as a temporary forced absence. This means the current government stays in place, but a constitutional clock starts ticking until elections are held.

Under this plan,

Rodríguez can run the country for up to 90 days, which means the temporary period could go until April. The constitution allows for a single 90-day extension, which would push the deadline to July. If lawmakers decide that Maduro's absence is permanent, they'll have to hold a new presidential election within 30 days.

If the National Assembly declares an absolute absence during the first year of Maduro's current term, the constitution says they need to hold a new presidential election within 30 days. That means there's a chance of a vote as early as August if lawmakers act quickly to "officially" remove him from office.

See the whole article on Bloomberg here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-05/maduro-s-son-backs-rodriguez-even-as-she-extends-hand-to-trump

AI Memefies Mediocrity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 1 Sep 2025 15:47:00 +0200

AI Memefies Mediocrity

Interesting Bloomberg piece on how mediocrity has spread everywhere.

"Mediocrity is not so much a bug as a feature. We increasingly live in a world of corporate lookalikes…"

AI is one of two powerful forces in modern business sending the mediocrity revolution into overdrive.

Artificial Intelligence memefies & magnifies mediocrity.

"Al operates by scraping the internet for established knowledge and then serving up that knowledge in a predigested form… in an infinite feedback loop."

See the whole article on Bloomberg here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-08-29/cracker-barrel-logo-is-corporate-mediocrity-s-latest-casualty

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MasterFeeds

MasterFeeds on X

Intel CEO says company lost its mojo, admits falling out of the Top 10 semiconductor co’s

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 02:33:00 +0200

While $NVDA 's market cap soared past $4 trillion after a 10X run in 30 months, $INTC has dropped to just over $100 billion—less than 1/2 its 2023 value.

After decades of industry leadership, says it's now "too late" for Intel to catch Nvidia in lucrative AI training market, saying Nvidia's position "is simply too strong"

Following an $18.8 billion net loss in 2024, Intel is laying off ~20% of its workforce

See more here: https://www.perplexity.ai/page/intel-ceo-admits-company-has-l-YgWQP5kZSWyoHIx1umpk2g

bit.ly/MasterFeeds

Interactive Inflation & Rates Tracker: How Does Your Country Compare?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:46:00 +0200

Great interactive tools from the FT to track inflation, interest rates throughout the world.

See how your country compares:

https://on.ft.com/3pfpdbi

IMF cuts Latam, Caribbean 2025 GDP growth estimates

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 15:48:00 +0200

IMF cuts Latam, Caribbean 2025 GDP growth estimate | Reuters

Trade worries, tariffs lead the International Monetary Fund to forecast 2025 LatAm & Caribbean GDP growth to slow to 2.0%, down from January's estimate of 2.5%, vs. 2024's 2.4%.

Mexico's expected contraction in 2025 accounts for most of the IMF's estimate for a slowdown.

Mexico's economy, strongly intertwined with the US, is forecast to contract 0.3% this year, vs. a previous 1.4% expansion, as U.S. tariffs bite into exports.

Brazil, region's largest economy, seen slowing to 2.0% from January's forecast of 2.2%.

Argentina's growth continues at 5.5%, an uptick from the 5% expansion seen in January.

Colombia, Chile and Peru seen growing 2.4%, 2.0% and 2.8%, respectively.

Central America: 3.8% GDP growth this year, slightly slower than the 3.9% rate in 2024, while the Caribbean is seen decelerating to 4.2% in 2025 from last year's 12.1%.

The IMF cut its view of global economic growth in 2025 to 2.8% from 3.3% in January as the U.S. lifted tariffs to the highest in a century. The fund cut its growth view on most single countries.

Reporting by Rodrigo Campos

See the whole story here: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/imf-cuts-latam-caribbean-2025-gdp-growth-estimate-2025-04-22/

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MasterFeeds

$GS highest quarterly revenue haul on record in Q1 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 02:29:00 +0200

$GS Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Equity-trading revenue rose 27% YOY to $4.19 billion in Q1 2025— its highest quarterly revenue haul on record, following $JPM JPMorgan Chase & Co. and $MS Morgan Stanley who also notched record stock-trading hauls for the period. This after a record 2024 for Goldman when it lifted equity trading revenue by ~50%.

The banks are riding a wave of volatility that’s roiled financial markets triggered by a potential global trade war emerging.

See all US Bank Earnings:
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
Wells Fargo
JPMorgan
BNY

See the whole story on Bloomberg here: Goldman’s Stock Traders Ride Volatile Markets to Record Quarter

-- The MasterFeeds

Equity futures sink, gold rises after Trump imposes tariffs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 3 Apr 2025 04:41:00 +0200

Gold gains ground on safe-haven flows
Treasury yields fall while U.S. dollar loses ground
Trading choppy after Trump tariff announcements

Equity futures fell on Wednesday after the U.S. market close while safe-haven gold and bond prices rose as investors worried about U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of 10% tariffs on all imports, with much higher rates for some trading partners.

S&P 500 E-minis stock futures initially rose after Wall Street indexes closed the regular session higher, but then lost ground as Trump went into detail about his tariff plans in a White House Rose Garden event.

S&P 500 futures ES1! fell 1.6% as Trump spoke while Nasdaq futures NQ1! fell 2.4%.

Trump, who has referred to Wednesday as "Liberation Day", outlined a range of levies for different countries including

34% tariffs on imports from China, 20% tariffs on imports from the European Union and 24% on imports from Japan.

He also announced 25% autos tariffs covering cars, light trucks, engines and other auto parts.

"When the press conference first started the President said tariffs would start with a 10% baseline across the board. That was better than expected, which was why we saw futures rallying," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"But once he got to specifics and started giving examples which were significantly higher than 10%, that's when futures turned around and went negative," Zaccarelli added.

"In the short run tariffs are going to increase costs and reduce corporate profits. If we have a reshaping of the economy, I'm sure markets will have a different judgment, but the short-term knee-jerk reaction is to the initial price hikes."

Investor focus on Wednesday had been firmly on the scheduled announcement of reciprocal levies.

Before the announcement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI had closed up 235.36 points, or up 0.56%, to 42,225.32, while the S&P 500 SPX rose 37.90 points, or 0.67%, to 5,670.97. The Nasdaq Composite IXIC had ended the session up 151.16 points, or 0.87%, at 17,601.05.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe EURONEXT:IACWI rose 3.96 points, or 0.48%, to 836.11.

But some investors noted that the market's reaction going forward would depend on responses from U.S. trading partners.

"We've just got one side of the story, which is what we're doing. And the other side of the story is how other countries respond to what we're doing," said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital in Greenwood, South Carolina.

Todd said that would be "a big component to how the market ultimately digests what is being said right now."

Gold prices pushed closer to record highs, boosted by safe-haven inflows after the announcements.

Spot gold GOLD rose 0.64% to $3,130.38 an ounce. U.S. gold futures (GCc1) rose 1.3% to $3,159.30 an ounce.

In fixed income, U.S. Treasury yields fell, with two-year yields dropping to their lowest level in three weeks after Trump announced the tariffs.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes US10Y fell 1.6 basis points to 4.14%, from 4.156% late on Tuesday. The 30-year bond (US30YT=RR) yield fell 0.5 basis points to 4.5098% from 4.515% late on Tuesday.

The 2-year note (US2YT=RR) yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 0.5 basis points to 3.858%, from 3.863% late on Tuesday.

In currencies, the dollar lost ground.

After the announcements, the euro EURUSD was up 0.38% at $1.0834 while sterling GBPUSD strengthened 0.54% to $1.2989.

Against the Japanese yen USDJPY, the dollar weakened 0.17% to 149.36.

In energy markets, oil prices, which had settled the regular session higher, lost ground after the tariff news stoked concerns that a global trade war may dampen demand for crude.

U.S. crude fell 0.27% to $71.00 a barrel after settling up 0.72%, while Brent fell to $74.07 per barrel, down 0.59% after settling at $74.95 per barrel.

See the article here: https://www.tradingview.com/news/reuters.com,2025:newsml_L2N3QG114:0-equity-futures-sink-gold-rises-after-trump-imposes-tariffs/

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MasterFeeds

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Saylor’s Strategy $MSTR Selling Strife to Investors

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 23:39:00 +0100

Saylor's Strategy, and the trouble with Strife

Saylor's latest scheme's name, may say it all! It's called Series A Perpetual Strife Preferred Stock!

As Alphaville says,

"Strife"? "Perpetual Strife"? Matt Levine at Bloomberg had initially suspected a typo when he read it, but 23 references in the document suggest not. Maybe it's an inside joke — the kind of thing that sounds clever at 5am at an after-party. Or perhaps it's an unwittingly honest nod to the drama surrounding the company's relentless bitcoin accumulation.

For one, it's not your typical (Micro)Strategy dilutive equity issuance; unlike the perpetual strike preferred securities ( $STRK ), it is not convertible into common stock.

So it's just strife for you!

Michael Saylor, executive chair and Bitcoin Maximalist Extraordinaire, is pitching it as a way for the "vast pool of fixed-income investors, who generally prefer stability and predictable returns", to "participate" in the rise of Bitcoin. Yet Strife offers neither. It exposes investors to bitcoin's downside —since Strategy's creditworthiness is intrinsically linked to its crypto holdings— without giving them any upside if the Bitcoin soars. The dividend is fixed, so if bitcoin "moons", Strife holders are left watching and drooling from the sidelines. "It's like being invited to an all-you-can-eat buffet but only allowed to smell the food."

Read the whole article on the FT's Alphaville here.

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MasterFeeds

@MasterFeed

(More than a) Fairlife, Some would say they're Milking it

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 03:04:00 +0100

Coke paid about $1 billion in 2020 to buy the majority 57% stake in the Fairlife Milk JV formed in 2012, and agreed to performance-based payments through this year, initially estimated at $320 million.

The final tally is expected to be $6 billion, a projection that surged 275% in the past two years, and will boost the Fairlife price tag to about $7.4 billion over five years —making it the largest brand acquisition in the company's 133-year-old history.

See the story on Bloomberg here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-02-10/coke-owned-fairlife-milk-is-soda-giant-s-fastest-growing-brand?

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MasterFeeds

@MasterFeed

Era of Free Money Comes to an End for Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 9 Feb 2025 18:20:00 +0100

Rising interest rates, sustained inflation and potential wave of wage increases this spring are fueling relentless sell-off in Japan's government debt, bringing 10-year Japanese government bond yields to 1.31% Friday, after this year's rise of 0.21 percentage points, and a big jump in 2024.

Core inflation in December rose 3%—fastest annual pace in 16 months.

"[For Japan] inflation is for real this time," said James Novotny, an investment manager at Jupiter Asset Management.

Speculation is intensifying that the BOJ could raise rates in July and that the terminal rate might be higher than 1 per cent currently expected. —You can be sure it will be!

See the article in the FT here:

Japan's borrowing costs soar to 14-year high

https://on.ft.com/3CEkHOv

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“I Was Hounded, Day In, Day Out.”

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 2 Feb 2025 13:45:00 +0100

Alice Nderitu, @UN’s former special adviser on the prevention of genocide, on her contentious tenure.

“It’s instructive that this never happened for any other war. Not for Ukraine, not for Sudan, not for D.R.C. [Democratic Republic of Congo], not for Myanmar,” she says. “The focus was always Israel.”

“I Was Hounded, Day In, Day Out. Bullied, hounded, with protection from nobody.”

Read the full interview on AirMail here:

https://airmail.news/issues/2025-2-1/i-was-hounded-day-in-day-out

Hamas’ propaganda brainwashing has done its trick

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 02:56:00 +0100

The “narrative” has changed for Hamas now that there’s a ceasefire. They no longer need to be the "victim". Now, it’s all about projecting strength.

Some thoughts from Andrew Fox on the current situation in Gaza and what we may expect from Hamas going forward.

The IDF & Gaza

"Why the sudden change? Why do Hamas no longer care what the world sees?

"The answer is: "the narrative". Now there is a ceasefire, and Hamas has the huge strategic win of survival, they no longer need the "victim" narrative. Now, it is all about projecting strength."

The propaganda brainwashing has done its trick:

"Palestinians convinced a significant proportion of the world that Israel was bombing them indiscriminately, ethnically cleansing them, and denying them aid."

"When presented with evidence against their beliefs, these people are so far gone they will dismiss contradictory evidence out of hand. It is called the Backfire Effect."

With their work on the international stage done, and with a number of international legal cases in motion to snarl up the debate for years, Hamas can move on to their new message: "We are still strong; we withstood everything Israel had to throw at us. We can still humiliate them."

…

This tells us that Hamas is now done talking to the West. Their audience now is the Arabic world, where strength is all. To thrive again, Hamas needs to show its allies in Qatar, Egypt and Turkey that there is plenty of fight left in them. Only then will the arms and aid flow once more.

…

"So we've had evidence Hamas has been lying to the world for 15 months, but the world does not care. Minds are made up."

"We have seen Hamas claiming a win and trumpeting it loudly. They consider their homes in ruins and thousands of fatalities a win, because they survived."

"But that is not to say the IDF was defeated. Yes, they were forced to ceasefire prematurely, by American presidential factors far beyond their control. But, they have achieved most of their strategic goals, thanks to masterful operational design."

Read the whole post on Substack here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/mrandrewfox/p/the-idf-in-gaza-an-assessment?selection=aa34e47d-46a5-4e3d-97d7-7a8f36c04eb5&r=3afmwv&utm_medium=ios

The IDF in Gaza: an assessment

open.substack.com

bit.ly/MasterFeeds

DeepSeek Buzz Sends Tech Stocks on Track for $1 Trillion Wipeout

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 16:44:00 +0100

Darling AI chip producer Nvidia Corp., whose shares soared ninefold in the past two years making it the highest-valued company in the world, was at one point looking at an 11.5% drop in their shares in the premarket, zapping ~$350 billion in market value. It's recovered a bit since. Let's see what the opening brings.

See more here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-27/nasdaq-futures-slump-as-china-s-deepseek-sparks-us-tech-concern

https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NVDA/?utm_source=iosapp&utm_medium=spotlight

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bit.ly/MasterFeeds

Banks (finally) Unloading X Debt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 01:18:00 +0100

Four banks hold 90% of X's debt.

Bloomberg reports a group of banks, led by Morgan Stanley, is preparing to sell up to $3 billion of senior debt tied to Elon Musk's acquisition of X, at 90-95 cents on the dollar. This compares favorably with previous attempts to sell the debt in late 2022 right after its purchase, when it was priced at 20% discount to face value.

Bankers contacted a "select group of investors"—likely pensions funds and SWF's— to gauge interest in purchasing chunks of at least $250 million at a time.

The banks, which recently offloaded about $1 billion to multiple investors in a private transaction, plan to hold on to X/Twitter's more junior debt for the time being.

When Musk bought Twitter, he and co-investors put up $33.5 billion of equity, even though Musk said in October 2022 that he and his other investors were "obviously overpaying for Twitter." Despite this, seven banks, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclays, still approved the loans, and put $12.5BN in three tranches of debt

$6.5 billion meant to be sold to investors as senior secured leveraged loans.
Two $3 billion tranches meant to be replaced by secured and unsecured junk bonds.

—and which they've been stuck with since!

Recent improvements in X's financial performance and its increased relevance during the 2024 presidential election have potentially improved the debt's marketability, allowing banks to consider selling at the more modest discount of 5-10%.

Nevertheless, as of last fall —before Trump's victory—in its latest disclosure , Fidelity's Blue Chip Growth Fund valued X at only $9.4 billion, a staggering 79% drop from its purchase price in 2022.

See the article on Bloomberg here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-24/banks-prepare-to-offload-as-much-as-3-billion-of-x-buyout-debt

More on the story from perplexity.ai here:

https://www.perplexity.ai/page/banks-selling-x-debt-Twz2jcL4RfiYdBIjE91HZA

bit.ly/MasterFeeds

Alex Karp tells it like is!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 9 Dec 2024 04:57:00 +0100

Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, is just saying what many think…

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxTbb7Kj8cngQfn7DcUKiOVLC5qfrQ-8_W?si=rCCyZkcKDxyvYF_Q

See also this excellent interview with @PalmerLuckey of Anduril Industries where he discusses a number of things from the moral flaccidness of CEO’s of billion $ companies who won’t take a moral and patriotic stand for fear upsetting the bottom line…

https://masterfeeds.blogspot.com/2024/09/anduril-industries-palmerluckey-tells.html

-- The MasterFeeds