Trading Observations

• Little incremental overnight

• MU after the close the focus with semis trying to reassert

• Market remains very short-term overbought (S&P oscillator up to 7.36% - anything over 5% usually tough to make continued progress)  

• 5690/5640 support, blue skies above

• Sentiment - II BULLS edged higher, but only to 52.5% from 49.2% - with market at all-time highs - not a headwind until >60%

Futures

DOW -10

S&P -2

Nasdaq -18

10-Year Yield

Gold - another all time high

Consumer/Financial Healthcare

BAC – Berkshire sold another $860MM or 21.6MM shares over the last three days. They still own $32B worth, but it’s been a grind against other owners for a while and everyone wants to know when it will stop. JPM surmises potentially only 114MM shares more to go and likes the stock.

Visa – Everyone backing off their Visa stance given the DOJ suit is real. Visa makes a gob ton of free cash flow and is the perfect government target to push on without breaking it.

GPN – Yesterday’s presentation went poorly as they labelled 2025 a “transition year”. The stock is cheap, but without revenue inflection higher, this market won’t care.

Deutsche Bank – Sees healthy investment bank growth this quarter.

SQ – Bloomberg out saying Cash App can challenge Apple Pay and PayPal.

Visa – Down 2% - News the DOJ plans to file suit against Visa for dunning a US debit and credit card monopoly. Given the regulatory issues here, high multiple, and late inning on US swipe growth, this feels like a dead name for a while.

Breitling’s CEO expresses confidence that the luxury market has hit a bottom Bloomey 

LVMH – the head of the firm’s specialty retail business, which includes Sephora, will be stepping down - Bloomey

WMT hit fresh all-time highs on Tues thanks in part to an upgrade by Truist to Buy (note that 93% of the sell-side now rates Walmart Buy, and the PE is the highest it’s been in decades, although the stock still trades at a large discount to Costco).

Technology

NVDA: beast in alpha (volumes slightly above avg); ppl pointing to report that Jensen done selling stock under plan ... felt like something larger in motion .... checks remain positive w/ some suggestion of solid H200 momentum in CQ3 while significant capacity is being prepared for Blackwell with the ramp of initial ODM server volumes appearing set for CQ1 (H20 ban well flagged)

EXPE: -1.6% d/g @ TD Cowen - says Expedia's weak business-to-consumer business, which drove guidance cuts the past three quarters, may take longer than expected to turn around; also faces tough 2025 cost cut compares

AVGO: Japan FTC inspected offices of VMware’s local unit on suspicion of unfair trade practices (Nikkei)

DASH: +2.3% KeyBanc upgrading .. more confident from its Q3 mobility and delivery survey that DoorDash is gaining ground in its core and emerging verticals, which should sustain greater than 15% gross order volume growth and drive EBITDA of $3.5B by 2026

PRGS reported strong FQ3 EPS upside at 1.26 (vs. the Street 1.14), w/the beat driven largely by higher op. margins (the mid-point of the FQ4 EPS guide is a bit light at 1.20 vs. the Street 1.28)

CRM to acquire Zoomin, a leading data management provider for unstructured data. This transaction does not result in any change to Salesforce’s current financial guidance previously provided in August 2024.

META is expected to unveil the latest version of its Ray-Ban smart glasses on Wed at the Connect Conf. according to the WSJ (Zuckerberg’s keynote is scheduled for 1pmET; the full Connect agenda can be found here).

Industrials 

BA strike headlines continue to revolve around union's lack of interest in company's latest offer.