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5 Jul 2024

French stocks are more than 4% away from reclaiming the losses they have suffered since the election was called last month.

Meanwhile, French bonds already have been lifted by the political maneuvering that seeks to block Marine Le Pen’s National Rally from winning an absolute majority in the National Assembly. The Franco-German 10yr spread has came down by -5bps to 67bps and has been tightening for 5 .consecutive day. This takes the spread down its tightest level in three weeks. Emmanuel Macron’s centrist group and a left-wing alliance opposed to Le Pen strategically pulled 223 candidates out of constituencies in an effort to avoid splitting opposition to the far right and lessen its chances of winning enough seats to form a government. That means no party is likely to win the 289 seats needed for a majority, the Morgan Stanley team said. Source: David Simon Elkoubi, Morgan Stanley

5 Jul 2024

High-end luxury sector in troubles as Dior reportedly paid contractor $57 to make handbag that sold for nearly $2,800 — investigators reveal...

According to a thorough investigation of subcontractors, two major Italian luxury companies are being called out for paying a minimal amount to produce high-end handbags that are sold for thousands of dollars. In recent months, Italian prosecutors in Milan looked into the use of third-party suppliers by the LVMH subsidiary Dior. The prosecutors found that these companies were exploiting workers to produce handbags at a significantly lower cost compared to their retail price. Based on documents obtained by authorities, Reuters recently reported that Dior paid a supplier $57 to manufacture handbags that were sold for approximately $2,780. This cost does not include expenses for materials like leather. According to a prosecution document cited by Reuters, the Dior department in question did not implement “appropriate measures to check the actual working conditions or the technical capabilities of the contracting companies.” During investigations conducted in March and April, evidence was discovered that workers were residing in the facility to enable continuous production of handbags, as reported by Reuters. Additionally, electricity consumption data indicated that work was being conducted during nights and holidays. The subcontracting firms involved were Chinese-owned, with prosecutors noting that the majority of the workers were from China, two of whom were living in the country unlawfully and seven were working without proper documentation. Source: Hollywood unlocked

4 Jul 2024

BREAKING: Nancy Pelosi has sold her Tesla, $TSLA, position worth ~$500,000.

She has also purchased an addition $1.2 million of Nvidia, $NVDA, and $5 million of Broadcom, $AVGO. Nancy Pelosi made millions buying nvidia, $NVDA, over the last two years. It appears that she is now doubling down on semiconductors stocks. Are chip stocks setting up for favorable legislation and/or US support ⁉ Source: The Kobeissi Letter

4 Jul 2024

What is the link between the Japanese index Topix and Taylor Swift?

Finally after 35 years Japan's Topix has topped its 1989 high, which on a completely unrelated note was hit a few days after the birth of Taylor Swift... Source: David Ingles, Bloomberg

4 Jul 2024

Here's the link to a great article from Sequoia which argues the tech industry needs $600B in AI revenue to justify the money spent on GPUs and data centers:

https://lnkd.in/exFU9Wdp Bottom-line >>> OpenAI is the biggest AI pure play and is at $3.4B annual run rate. This feels like a bubble unless products worth buying show up. Source: Sequoia, Dare Obasanjo @Carnage4Life

4 Jul 2024

The last time the market was this lopsided, Lehman filed for bankruptcy

Source: www.zerohedge.com, Bloomberg

4 Jul 2024

Nvidia in 2024 vs. Cisco Systems in 2000..

Nvidia recently earned the most valuable company in the world status with an EV of $3.3 trillion, a record 11.7% of total US GDP at its recent peak on June 18, more than twice as high as Cisco’s achievement in 2000. It also has an even richer multiple of 41 times revenues. Will be future growth be up to the lofty market expectations? Source: Crescat Capital, Bloomberg, Tavi Costa

4 Jul 2024

Outperformance of sp500 vs US 30-year Treasury bond is massive. What would it take to reverse the trend?

Source: Mac10

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