The Woke Street Journal
The Activist Pushing Companies to Ditch Their Diversity Policies-WSJ
It took three weeks of tweets from conservative activist Robby Starbuck for Tractor Supply to scrap its diversity and inclusion program. Tractor-maker Deere DE -1.16%decrease; red down pointing triangle folded even faster.
“Our next company we go after will be shorter than that,” Starbuck said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“Everybody should just go to work, do their job, go home,” he said. “You want to be an activist in your personal time? That’s your business.”
ESG
Why Chevron Is Fleeing California-WSJ
The list of anti-Chevron state policies include a low-carbon fuel standard, cap-and-trade fees, drilling restrictions and a penalty on “excessive” refinery margins. To add injury to insult, the Richmond City Council has put on the November ballot a $1 a barrel tax on Chevron’s refinery, one of the largest in the state.
House Republicans detail 'the failure of ESG' in report-Pensions & Investments
Woke Companies
Marvel Studios Fired Woke Producers After Phase 4 Failure Claims Rumor-Comic Book News
Chris Core claims to have been told by Marvel insiders that Feige and Marvel “have cleaned house.”
“I do know people who work at Marvel. They have cleaned house,” said Gore. “They quietly, months ago, fired all the producers that could be labeled activist.”
Plan submitted to fly controversial ‘woke-free zone’ flag at business headquarters-Wrexham Herald
DEI
DEI has some prominent critics—but it’s actually getting more popular-Fortune
Election
Trump’s Team Had a Harris Strategy. Then He Went Off-Script About Her Race.-WSJ
But Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks earlier this week about her identity, which caused some of his aides to gasp, further injected race and gender into the campaign. The controversy threatens to derail their effort to define her when his campaign, thus far a more disciplined operation than his earlier bids, is eager to blunt the sudden energy for Harris.
I continue to believe that if the Republicans keep attacking Kamala over her race and ethnicity they will lose in November, possibly badly. Instead, they should be going after policies. According to Erick-Woods Erickson maybe that’s changing…
But that may be changing. Multiple clips have surfaced over the past 24 hours of Kamala Harris espousing wildly leftwing propaganda while JD Vance masterfully redirected a CNN question over Kamala’s race. If the Trump campaign wants to win, let Kamala speak. Let her prove herself to be the political chameleon her record claims her to be. The more, the better
Meanwhile, Kamala had a tough time explaining cloud storage
This guy is on the VP shortlist. Minnesota Governor Walz: Invest In Ladder Company To Defeat Trump’s Border Wall-Daily Wire
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) said during an interview this week that he would invest in a ladder company that builds ladders taller than former President Donald Trump’s border wall to defeat the barrier on the southern border.
Market
Kind of what I thought when I saw red pre market on Friday. Last thing you wanted to see after AAPL and AMZN earnings was a down open, which then accelerated from there. Narrative now is that the Fed is behind again and should have cut last week.
Lousy Jobs Report Forces Fed to Reckon With Hard Landing-WSJ
Policymakers have been focused squarely on inflation. Now they need to worry about the labor market, too.
That’s probably right, I trust the market more than I trust the Fed, but intermediate term it’s a positive in that we may get more aggressive cutting. Jobs Report Should Put a Jumbo Fed Rate Cut on the Table-Bloomberg
First, the labor market probably isn’t quite as imperiled as the main figure suggests. Second, the speed at which it’s cooling ratchets up the risks, and Federal Reserve policymakers should at least entertain the possibility that they’ll need to cut rates by 0.5 percentage point when they meet next in September.
Shorter term, this is a concern.
VIX did close well off the highs, but a spike like this can go one of two ways. First, it could be an omen of something bigger. Here is a chart of February 2018 where we had a big move on February 2 followed by the Volmegeddon move.
Remember though, VIX needs fear to stay elevated to stay up. Stocks could continue to drop, but if the fear isn’t there then VIX could still drop.
I have a bunch of models that trade VIX long and short. For the short side I use puts on VXX, UVXY, or UVIX, whatever looks easier to trade at the moment. For the long sides I buy calls on the VIX index. The VIX ETPs use futures, so the roll makes them wasting assets, which is why I buy puts on them and not the index, and the other way around. The beauty of options is that number 1 you don’t get carried out on a stretcher, which you would have if you were short VIX outright yesterday, and number 2 you could end up in a situation like I did Friday where I had both sides, but my gains on the calls way exceeded my losses on the puts. Much quieter week in terms of data than last week, which could help vol settle down a bit.
SPY is down 5.69% from the top, and it is still up 12.83% ytd. If the past few days are a problem for you, then you are taking too much risk.
Overnight Japan cratered again and it is taking down our markets as well. Bunch of stuff going on:
-Fed behind the curve
-Warren Buffett selling a ton of his Apple
-Great chance of major Middle East war
Crypto taking it on the chin even more, with Ethereum down over 20%. That kind of move looks like a forced liquidation. VIX is currently at 41, it can’t stay that elevated for long but it is a big concern at the moment. Moves like this do two things, first they tell you if your investment strategy makes any sense. Making money on the upside is relatively easy, protecting the downside is not. Second, it will create opportunity. I don’t think we go into a bear market, I think the Fed will come in and cut more aggressively and over the intermediate term that’s going to be a positive. Be careful out there though. One other note, if the Fed does an emergency cut (not at a regularly scheduled meeting) I think it would move the market up in the very short term, but you are probably better off fading a move like that. If CNBC runs a Market’s In Turmoil special then I would be a buyer. Thank you Shiv for this…
X looks panicked, headlines I am reading looked panicked, and the Central Banks may be about to panic. It doesn’t feel like it, but that’s actually a good thing, as long as you can keep from panicking yourself.
Keep an eye on this nuclear theme. How a shuttered power plant in Michigan could pave the way for more nuclear energy-CNBC.com
But Palisades is now poised to become the first reactor in U.S. history to reopen after shutting down. Lawmakers on both sides of the political divide, tech companies and leading utilities increasingly view nuclear as a crucial source of reliable, carbon-free energy to supply rising electricity demand in the U.S. while slashing emissions to address climate change.
Everything Else
Crazy: The US has accidentally sent at least $239 million to the Taliban since 2021
Coming soon to a city near you? Starmer condemns ‘thuggery’ as far-right violence spreads in Britain-MarketWatch
This makes sense. You don’t have the resources to protect Trump but at least you are keeping airline passengers safe. Federal Air Marshal Whistleblowers Reveal Tulsi Gabbard is Actively Under Surveillance Through Quiet Skies Program-Gateway Pundit
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