Friday Watch

Evening Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Japan Stocks Set for Weekly Gain, With Strength in Exporters. 
• Carry Trade That Blew Up Markets Is Attracting Hedge Funds Again.
• Asian Equities Rally as US Recession Fears Fade.
• Oil Steadies at End of Choppy Week as Iran Remains in Spotlight.
• Steadfast US Consumer, Job Market Allay Concerns About Economy.
• Traders Shred Bets on Big Fed Rate Cuts on Resilient Economy.
• The Swing-State Economic Realities Shaping the US Election.

Zerohedge:  

• "It's Communism": Kamala's First Economic Plan Proposes Price Controls To "Combat Inflation".
• Wealthy Chinese National Engineered "Bogus Raid" To Strongarm Business Partner Out Of $37 Million.
• 10 Things To Know About Tim Walz And His Ties To Communist China.
• Fake Images Are Everywhere Now—Here's How To Spot Them.
• California Democrat Revives Bill To Release Longtime Convicts Who Have 2 Murder Convictions.
• Palm Beach Officials Mull Closing Mar-a-Lago Amid Heightened Security.
• Couple That Earns $250,000 A Year Says They Can't Find A House In Their Budget.
• VDH: The Weird, Creepy, Surreal (And Dangerous) 2024 Campaign.
• US stocks rallied after Retail Sales and Initial Jobless Claims data eased economic concerns - Newsquawk Asia-Pac Market Open.
• CTAs Are Now Buyers In All Market Scenarios.
• US Government Asks Supreme Court To Reinstate Student Loan Relief Plan.
• Over 100,000 LA Residents Could Be Homeless By 2028 Olympics.
• Stocks rally as deluge of data eases some US economic concerns - Newsquawk US Market Wrap.
• Kamala: The NPC Candidate.
• Stocks Soar, Bonds & Bitcoin Battered On 'Fake' Data As VIX Plunges At Record Pace.

Wall Street Journal:

• A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage.
• How the Biden-Harris Economy Left Most Americans Behind. A government spending boom fueled inflation that has crushed real average incomes.
• Walmart Earnings and July Retail Sales Show Consumers Aren’t Quitting.
• Obama’s Alma Mater Sacks Its Only Free-Market Professor. Occidental College didn’t renew Daron Djerdjian’s contract, and colleagues suspect ideological bias.
• The Missteps in Washington and Tehran That Brought Middle East to the Brink.
• Mars Megadeal Shows Big Food Wants to Get Bigger.

CNBC.com:

• Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt sees Nvidia as big AI winner: ‘You know what to do in the stock market’.
• Warren Buffett did something curious with his Apple stock holding.
• Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Applied Materials, Autodesk, Coherent, H&R Block and more.

MarketWatch.com:

• S&P 500 erases August losses as ‘irrational recession fears’ fade.
• ‘Race for AI’ boosts Applied Materials’ bottom line, but not its stock.
• H&R Block’s stock rallies after tax preparer touts ‘client success’.
• Chipotle lost its CEO to Starbucks — but gained a wave of retail stock investors.
• Pimco sees no recession, despite bond-market signal.

Fox News:

• Trump has theory about why ‘grossly incompetent’ rival has spent weeks avoiding the press.
• ESPN fires anchor who spoke out against trans athletes competing against women.
• Pentagon issues warning about two American adversaries as Israel braces for Iranian attack.
• FOX NEWS POLL: Americans clearly lay blame for ‘emergency’ at border.

TheGatewayPundit.com:

• WATCH: Peter Doocy Masterfully Gets Biden to Admit Kamala Harris is Responsible for Crippling Inflation and the Massive Failure Known as ‘Bidenomics’.
• HUGE! Dan Bongino Reacts to Shocking New Video From January 6 That Shows Mystery Man Carrying Bag Toward Location of DNC “Pipe Bomb”.
• 14-Year-Old Alabama High School Football Player Collapses and Dies During Practice.
• Kamala’s Campaign Facing Lawsuit From North Dakota Radio Station After Deliberately Manipulating News Headlines.
• JUST IN: Secret Service Approves New Plan for Trump’s Outdoor Rallies – Including Surrounding Trump with Bulletproof Glass.
• There It Is! Kamala Harris Brags About Casting the Tie-Breaking Vote to Let IRS Crack Down on Tipped Workers – And the Crowd Claps Like Trained Seals (VIDEO).
• Look at That Crowd! Kamala and Joe Hold a Rally in Corner of Gym at Prince George’s County Community College (VIDEO).
• Rep. Jim Banks Demands Pentagon Probe into Tim Walz’s Frequent Trips to China While Serving in the National Guard.
• Digital Freedom Fighter Kim Dotcom Faces Extradition From New Zealand After 12-Year Battle with U.S. Government.
• ‘Who is Picking These Specific People to Be on His Detail?!’… UPDATE on Shocking Report That Female Secret Service Agent Abandoned Post During Trump Protection Detail to Nurse Baby (Video).
• WAYNE ROOT: The Tulsi Gabbard Story Should Scare Every American to Death. Do You Understand How Evil, Vicious and Out-of-Control Democrats and the Deep State Are Right Now? Can You Imagine What Democrats Will Be Willing to Do If They Win in November?
• WHO Declares Public Health Emergency On Mpox – Globalists Hellbent on Another Pandemic?
• MUST SEE: Senator Josh Hawley Tracks Down His Dem Opponent Lucas Kunce and Confronts Him at Event – Calls Him Out to Debate (VIDEO).
• Kamala Harris to Give Speech in North Carolina This Week Blaming Grocery Stores and Corporations for High Food Prices.
• Chicago Braces for Chaos: Courtrooms Prepared for Mass Arrests as Chicago Police Expect as Many as 100,000 Pro-Palestinian Protesters During DNC.

The Epoch Times:

• China Is Now Goading Iran Into Attacking Israel.

Around X:

• @BehizyTweets

• BREAKING: The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that private contractors working for the government are also subject to public records requests. This means citizens can now obtain evidence from companies involved in elections like Dominion [voting machines]. The court concluded in its ruling that “a request for public records related to a private contractor’s services to a public agency can be served upon non-agency custodians of the relevant public records — including the private contractor if he or she is the custodian of the records sought — and the Court of Appeals erred in concluding otherwise.”

• @GlennBeck
  

• Harley was identified as “American’. No product more so. Watch this, I can’t believe Harley riders haven’t stormed the gates of @harleydavidson . Harley owners let them hear your voice. NEVER would I buy a Harley Davidson now. My mother was right just in a different way. She always told me Harley’s will “kill you”. Well, little did she know they would end up working to kill America. (video)

• @WallStreetSilv

• Benjamin Franklin predicted it. Is it happening right now? In the UK, USA, Canada and Europe? Where do you think they are furthest along? (pic)

• @RealEJantoni

• Household wealth increased substantially faster under Trump than the current admin, but the much bigger difference is the inflation-adjusted change: 27.9% vs. 3.2% - about 9 times faster, and in less time... (graph)

• @KaCurrie_45
  

• @VP Harris admits she is a radical communist. (video)

• @EndWokeness
  

• Kamala's new "solution" to inflation? Government mandated price controls. I asked Grok what price controls did to Venezuela. Here is what it told me:
  

• @nicksortor

• Biden just CONFIRMED that Kamala Harris is directly tied to the regime’s disastrous economic record. And he says she won’t break from their policies. Kamala OWNS sky-high inflation and unaffordable groceries, and she’ll double down on it! (video)

• @libsoftiktok

• On this day 7 years ago, Donald Trump condemned white s*pr*mac*sts and neo-N*z*s. The media propagandists left out that part and twisted his words and this libelous hoax was born which is still spread by dishonest Democrats today. Here’s the full clip they don’t want you to see! (video)

• @stillgray
  

• JAILED FOR MEME CRIMES. A 51-year-old man in Egremont, UK named Lee Joseph Dunn has been thrown in jail for 12 weeks over 3 MEMES. Memes that show images of migrant gangs with a caption saying "Coming to a town near you". This is absolutely insane.

• @MJTruthUltra
  

• UPDATE: Trump Assassination Attempt. Disturbing Facts Revealed in a 6 Page Investigative Report which Found Crooks Body was Cremated — And Nobody knew he was Gone! • Rep Higgins tried to examine crooks body on August 5, and was surprised to learn the FBI released the body back to the parents. —— Nobody Knew he was gone until August 5, Including the County Coroner, law enforcement, and the Sheriff. —— he was cremated on July 23, just 10 days after the Assassination Attempt The Coroner technically had custody over the body and denies ever giving the FBI the authority to release the body. Now, “we will never actually know”. This is suspicious as hell!

• @amuse

• 105% of all eligible voters in Michigan are currently registered to vote. The MI GOP needs to be on high alert, as there are likely hundreds of thousands of absentee ballot applications floating around for voters who have moved out of state or passed away. (pic)
• Kamala Harris's proposal to implement Venezuela-style price controls to counter corporate greed - has been attempted in the Soviet Union, Jamaica, and in multiple socialist countries - it always ends up the same way - shortages, starvation, and inflation. (graph)

OpenVAERS:

• VAERS US COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. 1,013,375 Reports(+481 from prior report) Through August 2nd, 2024.

SKirsch.com:

• Using the MGH numbers with our own VAERS queries, we have 247 cases per million doses from the MGH study divided by 5.97 cases per million doses from VAERS. 247/5.97 = 41. This suggests that the VAERS under-reporting factor (URF) is 41X.

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are +1.0% to +2.0% on average.

• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 97.25 -1.5 basis points.

• China Sovereign CDS 60.75 -3.5 basis points.
  
• China Iron Ore Spot 94.0 USD/Metric Tonne +.67%

• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 39.03 -.03%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 56.4 +6.9%.
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 15.8 +.2%.
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.27%.

• S&P 500 futures +.08%.

• NASDAQ 100 futures +.14%.  

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are modestly higher, boosted by industrial and consumer shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher.  The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.