Syz the moment

Fed Chairman Powell reiterated the Federal Reserve's cautious stance on interest-rate cuts, stating that they would wait and observe before making any decisions. While Powell didn't introduce any significant changes, his comment provided relief to Wall Street by suggesting that recent inflation data hadn't substantially altered the overall economic outlook. He also reiterated the likelihood of rate reductions at some point during the year. “On inflation, it is too soon to say whether the recent readings represent more than just a bump,” Mr. Powell stated. “We do not expect that it will be appropriate to lower our policy hashtag#rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably down toward 2 percent.” At the same time, he said that cuts to the benchmark federal funds rate are “likely to be appropriate at some point this year” as he does not believe “inflation is reversing higher.”

Source: Bloomberg, Andreas Steno Larsen

It's quite astonishing: despite the NASDAQ 100's special mid-2023 rebalancing, the combined weight of $MSFT, $AAPL, $NVIDIA, $AMZN, $GOOGL, and $META still constitutes a substantial 38% of the index. Without this rare adjustment, the second of its kind in the last 25 years, these companies would currently represent 58% of the index.

The so-called "silver squeeze" have disappointed many and prior rallies faded. But this time could be different. Industrial utilization is increasing and investor interest is as well... Could silver catch up with Gold? Source: Bloomberg, Markets & Mayhem

The proposed revamp to its cash cow search engine would mark the first time the company has put any of its core product behind a paywall, and shows it is still grappling with a technology that threatens its advertising business, almost a year and a half after the debut of ChatGPT. Google is looking at options including adding certain hashtag#AI-powered search features to its premium subscription services, which already offer access to its new Gemini AI assistant in Gmail and Docs, according to three people with knowledge of its plans. Engineers are developing the technology needed to deploy the service but executives have not yet made a final decision on whether or when to launch it, one of the people said. Google’s traditional search engine would remain free of charge, while ads would continue to appear alongside search results even for subscribers. But charging would represent the first time that Google — which for many years offered free consumer services funded entirely by advertising — has made people pay for enhancements to its core search product. Source: FT

Source: Bob Elliott, The Daily Shot

Source: Visual Capitalist

True story $SPY