Archive for September, 2025

• Morning News: September 5, 2025
  Eddy Elfenbein, September 5th, 2025 at 7:04 am

  Xi Unites World Leaders Sick of Being Pushed Around by Trump

  Russia’s Putin Denies Economy Is Stagnating, as Evidence Suggests Otherwise

  Eurozone Posts Marginal Economic Growth in 2Q, But ECB Rate Cut Remains Unlikely

  German Manufacturing Orders Drop as Foreign Demand Takes Hit

  Sterling Faces Fresh Losses Ahead of Budget

  Canada Trade Deficit Narrows as Exports Revive

  Trump Prepares to Start North American Trade Deal Renegotiation

  The One Leftist the White House Tolerates (for Now)

  The Markets Will Speak Regardless of the Fed’s So-Called “Independence”

  Why Crypto Needs More Clarity and Market Structure Now

  Record $322 Billion in China Loans for Stock Bets Feeds Volatility and Prompts Caution

  Itochu Sells Japan’s First Orange Bonds for Gender Equality

  UBS CEO Against Reducing Bank’s Size in Face of Regulatory Concerns

  After 100 Years, Trillion-Dollar Fund Manager Wellington Wants You to Know Its Name

  The New American Hustle: Dividends Over Day Jobs

  Gold Heads for Strongest Week in Three Months; Focus on Key US Jobs Report

  Treasury Traders Gear Up for US Payrolls to Cement Fed Bets

  Is the Jobs Data Still Reliable? Yes, at Least for Now.

  Worker Pessimism Is Part of the US Economy Now

  Mounting Deportations Meet Slow Hiring in a ‘Curious Kind of Balance’

  The Crackdown on Cities Will Actually Make Them Less Safe

  Congress Must Join the Courts In Saving Trump From Himself

  Trump Basks in Tech Leaders’ Spending Vows at White House Dinner

  Tesla Board Proposes Musk Pay Package Worth as Much as $1 Trillion Over Decade

  How Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Fixation Adds Up for Me

  Would Another OPEC+ Production Surge Really Crash Oil Prices?

  South Africa’s Eskom Eyes Green Power as Its Energy Sales Drop

  Spirit Airlines Is Struggling, and Rivals Smell Blood

  The Doctors Are Real, but the Sales Pitches Are Frauds

  The Ironman CEO Wants to Turn the Race Organizer Into a Lifestyle Brand

  With Cracker Barrel, Customers Make a Case for Being Right

  What’s Next for Giorgio Armani’s Fashion Empire?

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• Morning News: September 4, 2025
  Eddy Elfenbein, September 4th, 2025 at 7:06 am

  The US Has Outsourced Its Gaza Policy to Israel

  In Tariff Standoff With Trump, China Boycotts American Soybeans

  Germany’s Ifo Institute Cuts Growth Forecasts on Tariff Impact

  Trump Asks Supreme Court to Allow His Sweeping Tariffs

  The Supreme Court Can’t Keep Dodging the White House

  Malaysia’s Central Bank Keeps Policy Rate Steady

  Turkey Inflation Inches Down as Central Bank Primes Fresh Easing

  Swiss Inflation Holds Steady as SNB Mulls Rate Cut Below Zero

  Financial Crime Watchdog Calls for Countries to Come Clean on Shell Companies

  The U.S. Dollar, and the Struggle for a Stable Currency

  Trump’s Fed Pick to Face Grilling From Lawmakers

  Three Things to Watch for at the Confirmation Hearing for Trump’s Fed Nominee

  Wall Street Strategists See More Unease on Fed Independence

  When the Government Dabbles, Freedom Wobbles

  Who Does Trump Fire If He Hates This Jobs Report?

  A Sovereign Wealth Fund for the US Is a Great Idea, Actually

  CVC Capital Partners Confident in Outlook After Results Match Views

  Goldman to Buy $1 Billion of T. Rowe Stock as Firms Team Up

  Jane Street Blindsides Regulator in Fight Over India Trades

  Revolut Debuts Buyback in Latest Move to Stay Private for Longer

  US Hiring Intentions Pull Back While Job-Cut Announcements Rise

  The Biggest U.S. Oil Companies Are Eliminating Thousands of Jobs

  Mexico Sees a Future in Shale Gas. Just Don’t Call it Fracking.

  John Deere, a U.S. Icon, Is Undermined by Tariffs and Struggling Farmers

  Harvard Judge Blasts Justice Gorsuch’s ‘Unhelpful’ Criticism

  Yes, America Has a Housing Emergency

  Trump’s Housing Chief Wants to Build, But With What?

  Health Care Costs for Workers Begin to Climb

  Novo Has High Hopes That Ozempic Pill Can Also Fight Dementia

  $40,000 Vacations Inspire Finance Pros to Become Travel Agents

  The Message for Big Tech in the Google Ruling: Play Nice, but Play On

  Amazon Pares Back Free Shipping Perk on Prime Membership

  McDonald’s Escalates Restaurant Industry’s Fight Over Tipping

  The Kelce Brothers’ Garage Beer Company Is Now Worth $200 Million

  Suntory Boss Who Resigned Said He Took CBD Supplements for Jet Lag

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• Morning News: September 3, 2025
  Eddy Elfenbein, September 3rd, 2025 at 7:04 am

  Xi’s Historic Meet With Putin and Kim Showcases Unity Against US

  China Services PMI Expands at Fastest Pace in Over a Year

  China’s ‘Opportunistic Devaluation’ Fuels Europe Trade Shock

  Turkey Inflation Inches Down as Central Bank Primes Fresh Easing

  Eurozone Inflation Accelerates, Priming Continued Rate Pause by ECB

  Central Banks Urged to Pool Dollar Reserves as Fed Help Questioned

  ECB’s Lagarde Says EU Should Close Loopholes in Stablecoin Regulation

  Global Bond Selloff Deepens With Longer Debt Leading Losses

  Tariff Chaos Reigns and America’s Economy Suffers

  US Treasury Yields Brush With 5% as Global Borrowing Costs Mount

  Behind This Season’s Bumper Earnings: Job Cuts, Price Hikes, Glum Workers

  Trump’s Drive to Reshape the Fed Progresses With Rapid Senate Hearing

  The Potentially Big Costs of Trump’s Fed Fight

  Cook’s Lawyers Fire Back at Trump’s Claim of Vast Powers to Oust Fed Officials

  Why Trump Isn’t Turning Into a Lame Duck

  Dumbing Down the SAT Bodes Poorly for Education

  U.S. Bancorp Resumes Crypto Custody as Regulators Clear Path

  Oil Traders Are Finding It Harder to Make Money in a Tumultuous Market

  Venture Capitalists Band Together in New Bid to Back Climate Tech

  Why Iowa Chooses Not to Clean Up Its Polluted Water

  A Hidden Tax That Could Price Us Out of Our Homes

  Anthropic Stake Propels Qatar’s $524 Billion Wealth Fund Deeper Into AI

  Google Avoids Harshest Penalties in Landmark Search Monopoly Ruling

  With Each Passing Day, Robots Are Enhancing the Value of Workers

  How Fining Elon Musk’s X Could Threaten the U.S.-E.U. Trade Deal

  What We Know About America’s Billionaires: 1,135 and Counting

  Pharmacy Benefit Managers Aren’t the High-Priced Drug Problem

  Cracker Barrel’s Sales Took Hit Before It Went Back to Old Logo

  How Jet Lag Cost the Global Face of Japan Inc. His Job

  Nestlé CEO’s Unraveling Started With a Tip to an Employee Hotline

  Behind the Numbers: How Hollywood Missed Its Mark This Summer

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• CWS Market Review – September 2, 2025
  Eddy Elfenbein, September 2nd, 2025 at 10:11 pm

  (This is the free version of CWS Market Review. If you like what you see, then please sign up for the premium newsletter for $20 per month or $200 for the whole year. If you sign up today, you can see our two reports, “Your Handy Guide to Stock Orders” and “How Not to Get Screwed on Your Mortgage.”)

  The stock market got off to a weak start for September. Historically, September and October have been the two worst months for the stock market. Perhaps Wall Street wanted to start the downtrend immediately.

  What’s interesting is that today’s damage was mostly felt by those High Beta names. I’ve been talking a lot about them recently, and you can see why. The S&P 500 was down by 0.7% which isn’t that bad. At one point, the index was down more than 1.5% for the day. At its low, the index was down 100.68 points.

  Notice the red rightmost cross in the chart below. You can see how low it fell during the trading day.

  

  This has been an odd market in that it’s been internally volatile but externally calm. In other words, the overall market is placid, but the riskier stocks have done well. I’ve been waiting for High Beta stocks to get their comeuppance.

  I’m starting to feel like Linus in the pumpkin patch. Instead of the Great Pumpkin, I’ve been waiting for the rotation out of high-risk names. Now might be a good time, but the market has easily repulsed any attack led by the bears. Just recently, the market had a five-day losing streak, but that lost ground was quickly regained by the bulls. In fact, it happened again this afternoon, but on a smaller scale.

  Today was the worst day for stocks since August 1. Interestingly, that was also the first trading day of the month. Take that away and today was the second-worst day for the market since July 7.

  August was another good month for Wall Street. It was also the fourth monthly gain in a row. As an investor, it’s hard to argue with a strong trend. Trying to spot market rotations is a dangerous game and I try to avoid it. Instead, I watch for what the market gives us.

  I’m closely watching to see if the S&P 500 falls below its 50-day moving average. Let me be clear that this is an imperfect metric, but it does have its merits. The index is still above its 50-DMA, but it got a lot closer today. If the market does lose its 50-DMA, which it hasn’t for several months, that could be a signal for the bears to continue attacking.

  Kraft Heinz to Split in Two

  Kraft Heinz (KHC) announced today that it’s splitting into two companies. The company had to make a move, and this was building for years, but not everyone is happy.

  Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns more than one-quarter of the shares, said he’s “disappointed” in the news. That almost sounds like a scolding parent. Shares of KHC fell 7% today.

  

  If you recall, ten years ago, Buffett was the one who pushed for the original Kraft-Heinz merger. He hasn’t touched his shares since 2015. Berkshire originally partnered with 3G Capital to get the deal done, but 3G sold all of its KHC shares two years ago.

  The plan is simple. What Kraft Heinz wants to do is divide the current company into two publicly traded companies. One company focuses on sauces, spreads and shelf-stable meals. The other would include staples like Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables.

  Buffett conceded that the merger hasn’t worked out as well as he has hoped. That’s some classic Midwestern understatement. He said that any splitting apart will cost a few hundred million dollars, and it will take several months. That’s true, but the present course isn’t working.

  The fact is that Americans’ tastes have changed and packaged food isn’t as popular as it once was. CNBC noted that some analysts “blamed the company’s slump on cost-cutting measures that kept Kraft Heinz from investing in its brands at a time when they needed it most.”

  Will Buffett sell? That’s not clear. He did say that if Berkshire is offered a block deal, meaning someone ponies up a few billion to take KHC off Buffett’s hands, he won’t take it unless the same deal is offered to KHC shareholders.

  This story brings me to an important lesson about investing: it can take a long time before you can properly judge a business. It’s been ten years at Kraft Heinz, and management and the major shareholder still disagree.

  Here’s an interesting stat that might surprise you: Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) were dead money for more than 13 years. It’s true!

  If you had invested in Nvidia on January 2, 2002, by September 1, 2015, you would be down about 4% with your investment (not including dividends). Make no mistake – this is a massive example of cherry-picking data, but nevertheless, those cherries are real. Nvidia really did very little for more than 13 years.

  

  Over the next ten years, shares of Nvidia have risen about 340-fold. Over the last four days, the stock has lost $340 billion.

  Shares of Pepsi (PEP) got a nice pop today when Elliott Investment Management said that it has taken a $4 billion position in the soda company.

  Elliott is a well-known activist hedge fund. By activist, I mean a fund that takes a large position in a stock and then advocates for some important changes in the hopes of giving the stock a boost. Oftentimes, this means paying out a dividend or boosting capital expenditures.

  Pepsi’s stock hasn’t been doing that well this year, and it’s even been lagging Coke (KO).

  The problem with being an activist investor is that the easy part is finding a company that’s not doing well. The hard part is finding a company that’s not doing well and that can easily get back to health. Elliott said that Pepsi should “evaluate the potential refranchising of its bottling network, while streamlining its portfolio by divesting non-core and underperforming assets.”

  Elliott’s position is different than Buffett’s with KHC. The reason is that even despite Elliott’s big position, it’s still small compared with the overall company which has a market value of $200 billion. As a result, Elliott needs to get investors on its side. Elliott said that Pepsi has the potential to rally 50% from here. That certainly got attention from a lot of folks.

  What I don’t get about Elliott’s position is that it doesn’t involve any major strategic gain, outside some generalities. It doesn’t advocate for a new dividend, or spin off, or merger. Instead, Elliott seems to say that Pepsi can somehow do better. I hope that’s right.

  The next big test for the market will come this Friday when the government releases the jobs report for August. The July report was weak, and the other months were downgraded. We’ll get the ADP report on private payrolls tomorrow.

  That’s all for now. There will be no Tuesday issue next week. I’ll be at the Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, CA. AdvisorShares will be at booth #327. If you’re around, come on by! I’ll have more for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review on September 16.

  – Eddy

• Morning News: September 2, 2025
  Eddy Elfenbein, September 2nd, 2025 at 7:04 am

  China’s Xi Redraws Geopolitical Map With Embrace of Putin, Modi

  It’s a Strongman’s World and We’re Just Living in It

  Putin’s Gas Pipeline Win in Beijing Sends a Message to Washington

  OPEC+ Set to Hold Output Steady as Oil Glut Anxiety Looms

  South Korea’s Inflation Hits Nine-Month Low

  Eurozone Inflation Accelerates, Priming Continued Rate Pause by ECB

  Loss of Fed Independence Would Push Up Borrowing Costs, Set Off Turmoil, ECB’s Schnabel Says

  US Regulators Cancel Bank Exams as Trump Rollback Gathers Pace

  After Court Defeat, Trump Warns of Economic Chaos From Loss of Tariffs

  American-Made Businesses Are Clamoring to Get on This Tariff List

  Economists Can Solve the Fed’s Tariff Problem

  America Inc. Swaps Decades for Days in Rush to Commercial Paper

  America Can Teach Europe a Lesson on Corporate Fundraising

  Why Investors Can’t Seem to Get Enough of Gold

  Stablecoins Are Coming for Your Rewards Points

  GOP Faces Headwinds on Push for Second Big Tax and Spending Bill

  This Little-Known US Transport Gauge Is Flashing an Early Hint of Slowdown

  How Can an Economy This Good Feel This Bad?

  Why a Balanced Budget Is the True Immoral Burden for the “Grandkids”

  Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

  More Fentanyl Shows Up in Random Workplace Tests

  Trump’s Space Research Cuts Are a Gift to China

  Why China Is Trying to Tame Its Electric Car Frenzy

  Tesla Will Derive 80% of Its Value From Optimus Robot, Musk Says

  Silicon Valley’s Drive to Get AI Into America’s Schools Is Working

  YouTube’s Covert AI Editing Experiment Won’t Be Its Last

  Leading With AI Without Compromising People, and Principles

  Klarna, Backers Seek $1.27 Billion in US IPO After Tariff Pause

  Kraft Heinz Is Splitting Into Two Companies

  CEO of Jim Beam’s Japanese Owner Quits During Police Probe

  Nestlé Fires CEO Following Probe of Romantic Relationship With Subordinate

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• Morning News: September 1, 2025
  Eddy Elfenbein, September 1st, 2025 at 7:08 am

  Xi Offers a Glimpse of His Alternative World Order

  China Factory Activity Gauge Signals Rebound in Manufacturing

  India Was the Economic Alternative to China. Trump Ended That.

  Putin Proposes Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Members Should Issue Joint Bonds

  Modi Hugs Putin and Hails Russia Ties in Defiance of Trump

  Putin Sees Only US Weakness in Ukraine

  Ukraine War Leads to Global Shortage of TNT

  Keir Starmer Is Hearing Voices From Political Valhalla

  How—and Why—U.S. Capitalism Is Unlike Any Other

  A Free Market Conservative Celebrates Labor Day

  USA250 | A Letter From The Wall Street Journal’s Editor in Chief

  Perfectly Legal and Undeniably Scandalous

  The Cracks in America’s Rule of Law Are Getting Deeper

  Threats to Fed Independence Are ‘Very Worrying,’ ECB’s Lagarde Says

  Trump’s Plan to Pack the Fed With Loyalists

  US Courts Size Up Trump Tariffs With WTO Defanged

  What Are Trump’s Options If His Tariffs Are Ruled Unlawful?

  Alibaba’s AI Revenue Surge Triggers $50 Billion Stock Rally

  How This A.I. Company Collapsed Amid Silicon Valley’s Biggest Boom

  How to Prevent AI From Causing an Economic Catastrophe

  Data Centers That Don’t Exist Yet Are Already Haunting the Grid

  Microsoft Now at the Center of Big Tech’s Worker Protests

  Chevron’s Boss Says the World Will Need Oil for a ‘Long, Long Time’

  Equinor to Subscribe for Orsted Shares Worth Up to $939 Million in Rights Issue

  Tesla Grabs Top Spot in Norway Where Almost All New Cars Are EVs

  EV Deals Are Booming Ahead of Tax-Credit Expiration

  Netflix ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Success Is No Surprise

  America Closed Malls, but China Kept Building Them. Now It Has Too Many.

  The Corporate Logo That Broke the Internet

  The US Open Has Become About Everything But the Tennis

  How Alcaraz and Sinner Skipped the Line in Men’s Tennis

  She Avenged Caitlin Clark on the Court. Now Sponsors (and the Right) Love Her.

  ESPN Employees’ Favorite Sport: Lamenting Their Home Base

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