DHUnplugged #814: The Doldrums

Oil Reserves taking a hit.

Finally getting to the recent high profile earnings.

Market Top Calls (again).

ALL TIME HIGHS – Then some consolidation (then highs again).

Situational Awareness Update.

SpaceX Bounces…

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Warm-Up

- Oil Reserves taking a hit

- Getting to the recent high profile earnings

- Market Top Calls (again)

Markets

- ALL TIME HIGHS - Then some consolidation

- Lets round out earnings

- Situational Awareness Update

- SpaceX Bounces...

Etsy - Layoffs With Better Numbers

- Etsy is cutting about 220 jobs, or 12% of its workforce.

- Management said the cuts were not primarily about cost savings or AI.

----- CEO Kruti Patel Goyal stated the restructuring aims to simplify the organization, remove management layers, and speed up decision-making to better compete against massive rivals like Amazon, Temu, and TikTok Shop

- Q2 revenue was about $668 million and core marketplace sales improved.

- Etsy also authorized another $2 billion share buyback.

- Comes after selling Depop to eBay for about $1.4 billion.

Polysilicon - Tariffs Plus Price Floors

- U.S. policy adds a 15% tariff and minimum import prices on polysilicon and solar products.

- Goal is to protect domestic production from low-cost foreign competition.

- U.S. share of global polysilicon capacity fell from about 50% in 2005 to under 2% in 2024.

- First Solar and T1 Energy jumped on the announcement.

---- The same playbook - rinse and repeat

Chipotle - Salmonella Returns

- Minnesota officials linked a salmonella outbreak to jalapenos served at Chipotle.

- Chipotle removed the affected pepper supply and switched growers.

- Shares fell roughly 8%-10% as investors remembered the company's earlier food-safety problems.

- This is on top of the lettuce situation with Sweetgreen- look at STOCK CHART FOR SG

Michael Burry - Calling a Major Top

- Michael Burry says the market may be near a "major top."

- Warned of the possibility of a 1987-style market drop.

- He is short names including Nvidia, Palantir, Tesla and semiconductor stocks.

- Main concern is stretched valuations and crowded trades unwinding quickly.

- This may be the 100th top he has called since the GFC ----

NVIDIA TURNS GPUs INTO AN ASSET CLASS

- Nvidia signed preliminary agreements with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize more than $500 billion for AI infrastructure.

- The Wall Street firms would create dedicated pools of capital to finance Nvidia-based data centers and compute infrastructure at what Nvidia calls attractive rates for customers.

- Jensen Huang: “This is really the first time that technology chips have become an investable asset class.” Nvidia says the compute assets now generate revenue and can increasingly be financed like infrastructure.

- Nvidia could backstop as much as 25% of individual investments on a case-by-case basis - potentially up to about $125 billion if applied across the full program.

STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE BREAKS 300 MILLION

- The Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by 6.1 million barrels to 298.7 million barrels for the week ended Aug. 7 - below 300 million for the first time since January 1983.

- The SPR started 2026 around 415 million barrels, meaning more than 100 million barrels have already come out this year as releases were used to offset disruptions from the Iran conflict.

- The reserve's authorized storage capacity is roughly 714 million barrels, leaving current inventories at about 42% of capacity.

- Oil on the rise last week

Earnings and such

Toyota - Big Buyback, Better Outlook

- Toyota raised its annual operating-profit forecast 13%, helped by the weaker yen.

- Announced a share b