DHUnplugged Podcast

Happy 250th!

The bulls are bubbling up!

Yentervention – it is a thing.

Labor market predictions.

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts!

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

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Warm-Up

- 250 Years!

- We have the scorecard

- Bulls are on the loose!

- Kevin Hassett - what a putz

- RAM JOB!

Markets

- Google's first day in the DJIA - a good one

- SpaceX bonds already losing

-Yen slips to 1986 levels - Yentervention?

WHAT A PUTZ!

- Trump Accounts launch July 4, with the NYSE and Nasdaq set to ring the opening bell from the Oval Office.

- Program gives a $1,000 Treasury-funded investment account to U.S. children born from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2028.

- Kids under 18 can have accounts, but only newborns in that four-year window get the federal seed money.

- Parents, family, employers, nonprofits, and governments can add money, with a general $5,000 annual contribution cap.

- Money is invested in index funds and generally locked up until the child reaches adulthood.

- Kevin Hassett pitched it as a way to teach kids about markets, ownership, saving, and compounding. His argument is that the more young people get exposed to investing early, and market ownership becomes less of an upper-income club.

- However - > the government is handing out taxpayer-funded brokerage seed money while selling it as capitalism.

- Also odd: the benefit may skew toward families who already know how to file forms, open accounts, and add more money.

- So basically it is a forced financial-literacy experiment wrapped in a political brand name, with a socialist starter check to teach capitalism.

First-Half Winners and Losers

- S&P 500 finished the first half up roughly 7% to 8%, with the rally led by AI hardware, chips, memory, and data-center infrastructure.

- Biggest winners were the shovel sellers: Sandisk up about 780%, Micron up about 296%, Western Digital up about 240%, Seagate up about 226%.

- Overseas AI hardware ripped too: South Korea's Kospi up 123%, helped by Samsung up 169% and SK Hynix up 303%.

- Semiconductor ETFs had a monster Q2: iShares Semiconductor ETF up 86.8%, VanEck Semiconductor ETF up 64.8%.

- Japan's Nikkei rose about 38%; FTSE 100 gained about 5.8%.

- Losers were the software/platform names that could not prove immediate AI payoff.

- Microsoft was down about 24% despite being one of the biggest AI spenders.

- Momentum stocks had one of their worst stretches in two decades as the Magnificent Seven slipped on capex worries.

- Crypto and gold also lagged the AI-infrastructure trade.

- Equity BULLS are running like it was San Fermin, Spain...

MORE....

- Gold biggest quarterly loss since 2013

- Japan best quarter ever

- Oil starts and ends

- Kospi best quarter in 30 years

- Stoxx 600 best Q in 5 years

Something is going to break!

- When Micro announced earnings, and we see that companies are panicking (News about existential threat to smaller tech players).. We said something is going to break

- MU shares lifted to ATH on the news - big big beat - Micron’s latest quarter showed a dramatic acceleration from the year-ago period, with revenue rising from $9,301 to $41,460 and EPS increasing from $1.91 to $25.11.

- HUGE uptick in guidance

- Apple increased pricing, Dell is increasing prices next week (17%), Microsoft raised price on XBox, HP across the board increase, Lenovo/Xiaomi increases,

- NOW: Apple is lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to buy memory chips from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies

Korea Goes All-In On AI Memory

- Samsung and SK Hynix are backing a huge South Korea chip buildout tied to AI memory, HBM, advanced DRAM, packaging and data centers.

- Samsung’s plan includes hundreds of trillions of won for new fabs, including HBM facilities in Cheonan and Onyang.

- SK Hynix is expanding Yongin and planning a major new chip base as it rides demand from Nvidia-linked HBM supply.

- Government angle: Seoul wants domestic chip capacity treated like national infrastructure, not just corporate capex.

- The state is trying to lock in supply-chain control before China, Taiwan, Japan and the U.S. pull more production into their own subsidy zones.

- Market wrinkle: AI memory is hot now, but memory companies have a long history of overbuilding into strong pricing cycles.

- Governments are no longer just subsidizing chips — they are helping plan semiconductor cities.

RAM Job?

- Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron were hit with a U.S. antitrust class-action lawsuit over alleged DRAM price fixing.

- Allegation: the big three coordinated supply cuts while shifting capacity away from regular DDR3/DDR4 memory and into high-bandwidth memory for AI servers.

- Plaintiffs say the three companies control roughly 90% of the DRAM market.

- Conventional DRAM prices allegedly jumped about 700% over four years.

- Complaint argues that in a normal commodity market, at least one supplier would usually increase production when prices spike.

- Instead, the lawsuit says all three moved in the same direction at the same time.

DRAM: We Have Seen This Movie Before

- Yes, there was a similar DRAM price-fixing scandal in the 2000s.

- DOJ investigation covered alleged DRAM price fixing from roughly 1998 through 2002.

- Hynix pleaded guilty in 2005 and agreed to pay a $185 million criminal fine.

- Samsung pleaded guilty in 2005 and agreed to pay a $300 million criminal fine.

- Infineon pleaded guilty earlier, in 2004, and agreed to pay a $160 million fine.

- Micron was involved in the investigation but received amnesty/cooperation treatment rather than the same criminal fine path.

- Several executives were also charged or pleaded guilty.

- State AGs and private plaintiffs later pursued civil cases tied to overpayment claims.

- Difference now: the new case is not yet proven and appears focused on alleged coordinated supply restriction during the AI/HBM boom.

Chevron and Microsoft

- Chevron Corp signed 20-year deal with Microsoft for data center power.

- Agreement supplies natural-gas fired generation for massive West Texas facility.

- Project Kilby expected online 2028, ramping to 2.67 gigawatts.

- Full output enough to power more than 530,000 Texas homes.

- Chevron partnering Engine No. 1, final investment decision planned later.

- Deal follows prior reports of exclusive long-term power negotiations.

More Oil News - Drill baby Drill

- Interior Department cutting federal drilling bonds by 95% to spur exploration.

- Required bond drops from $500,000 to $25,000 for leases.

- Bonds ensure cleanup costs don’t fall on taxpayers if wells abandoned.

- Policy change aims to encourage more oil and gas development.

- Proposal subject to 60-day public comment after Federal Register publication.

Dow 52,000 and the Tech Bounce

- Dow closed above 52,000 for the first time Monday, finishing at 52,182.74.

- S&P 500 gained 1.18%; Nasdaq jumped 2.07%.

- S&P and Nasdaq snapped five-session losing streaks.

- Alphabet rose 4.8% on its first day as a Dow component.

- Tesla gained 8.5%; SpaceX rose more than 7%.

- The bounce came after last week's tech selloff, with investors rotating back into mega-cap and AI names.

Comcast Breaks Itself Up

- Comcast plans to split media and connectivity into two separate companies.

- NBCUniversal and Sky would be spun off in a tax-free deal; Comcast keeps broadband, wireless, and cable.

- Completion expected within a year.

- Shareholders would own both Comcast and the new NBCUniversal.

- Comcast shares rose on the news; Charter also jumped as investors speculated Comcast could eventually pursue a broadband-scale deal.

AI Trade Gets a Warning Label

- Bank for International Settlements flagged the AI boom as a financial-stability risk.

- The main concerns: elevated valuations, investor complacency, complex funding structures, and debt financing across the AI supply chain.

- BIS also warned that record public debt and leveraged hedge-fund activity in sovereign bonds could amplify shocks.

- Quote from BIS General Manager Pablo Hernandez de Cos: "Policy actions must reinforce each other."

- The interesting part: central bankers are not saying AI is fake; they are saying the financing stack may be fragile.

Inflation Back Above 4%

- BEA's PCE price index rose 4.1% year over year in May.

- April was 3.8%; March was 3.5%; February was 2.9%.

- This keeps pressure on the Fed because PCE is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge.

- Core PCE may later be revised lower because of BEA methodology changes.

- Goldman estimated May core PCE could be trimmed to 3.2% from 3.4%; JPMorgan expected 3.3%.

- Funny-but-real detail: part of the potential revision comes from how BEA prices portfolio management, legal services, and computer software.

Jobs Report Becomes Bad-News-Is-Bad-News

- June payrolls are due Thursday because markets are closed Friday for Independence Day.

- The setup is awkward: strong jobs could mean stronger economy, but also higher odds of Fed hikes.

- Looking back - May payrolls were hot at 172,000 versus an 85,000 forecast, with unemployment steady at 4.3%.

- Remember - after the June Fed meeting, policymakers were clearly focused on inflation, not rescue cuts.

Oil, Iran, and the Market's New Weird Routine

- Oil stayed volatile around renewed U.S.-Iran tensions and peace-talk headlines.

- Brent rose 1.6% Monday to $73.15; WTI rose 2.2% to $70.75.

- Markets rallied anyway, helped by signs talks would resume and shipping routes were stabilizing.

- The odd market behavior: geopolitical escalation keeps getting followed by de-escalation headlines and risk-on rallies.

- This is now part of the trading pattern: weekend war scare, Monday relief rally, repeat.

--- New attacks by USA on Iran happened at approx 4:30PM on Friday (markets closed) and then a halt to the fighting on Sunday - before the futures opened.

Odd : Wendy's Becomes a Meme Stock

- Wendy's became the latest retail-trader short-squeeze target.

- Stock surged 25% last Wednesday, then gained another 9% Thursday.

- Barron's said the move followed a CFO shakeup and WallStreetBets attention.

- New CFO Steve Cirulis came from Potbelly and is also taking the Chief Strategy Officer title.

- Wendy's had fallen 47% over the past year before the rally.

- Short interest was nearly 30% of the public float, making the stock easier to squeeze.

- Trian, Nelson Peltz's firm, owned nearly 15 million shares valued around $93 million.

SpaceX Bonds Slip After Big Debut

- SpaceX sold $25 billion of investment-grade bonds, its first major public debt deal.

- Demand was huge, with roughly $85 billion to $98 billion of orders.

- The 10-year tranche priced about 1.4 percentage points over Treasurys.

- Bonds weakened quickly after pricing.

- The 10-year yield rose near 6%, with the spread moving above 1.6 percentage points.

- Longer-dated 2046 and 2056 bonds took the most pressure.

- The pushback: bond buyers want more yield for a company still funding rockets, Starlink, AI/data-center spending, and Mars ambitions.

- Clean read: equity investors bought the story; bond investors immediately marked it down.

Yentervention

- Yen weakened again, pushing toward the 162-per-dollar zone and near its weakest level in about 40 years.

- Japan keeps warning it is ready for "decisive action" or to respond "at any time."

- Market does not seem scared for long.

- Japan already spent heavily defending the yen, including a roughly $73 billion yen-buying operation after the currency broke past 160.

- U.S. rates are still high, the Fed is not rushing to cut, and the Bank of Japan is still moving slowly.

- That keeps the carry trade alive: borrow cheap yen, buy higher-yielding dollars.

- Japan's foreign reserves fell 5.6% in May after intervention, showing the defense is expensive.

 

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THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN

for SpaceX (SPCX)

Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!

 

 

FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS

 

See this week’s stock picks HERE

Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Announcing the CTP for SpaceX.

MahJong Craze gone wild.

Goodbye to Alan Greenspan – The Maestro.

Have you seen RAM prices?

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts!

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

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Warm-Up

- Announcing the CTP for SpaceX

- MahJong Craze

- Goodbye to Alan Greenspan - The Maestro

- Have you seen RAM prices?

Markets

- Economic Collapse Imminent?

- Breathe is narrowing again - chips chips chips are the only play

- Spacex coming back down to earth? What is that sucking sound?

-- Markets getting weird..... 3% down for NASDAQ 100 today - 8% for SMH and 14% for Memory ETF

- Just announced - Alphabet (Google) will replace Verizon in DJIA

DEDICATION: Alan Greenspan - Died Monday at age 100

Google Enters DJIA

- High priced shares

- Moves tech to 22% of DJIA from 17% or so - very meaningful move

- Every $1 move for Google = $7 move on DJIA

- Tech:  S&P 500 (~30%+), Nasdaq (~50%+)

Computer Pricing

- What as $2,000 a year ago for a nice desktop is not like $4,000

- Dell not holding pricing quotes - and even if they do, back ordered so prices could go up after order

- Will IPOs put more money in the pocket of tech companies to buy gear at any price?

Endless

- SpaceX recently finalized two massive, multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence contracts: a $6.3 billion computing power agreement with Reflection AI and a $60 billion acquisition of the AI coding startup Cursor.

- AI Compute Deal with Reflection AI

- - - - The Terms: Reflection AI agreed to pay SpaceXAI $150 million per month from July 2026 through the end of 2029.

- - -- - - The Infrastructure: The startup will tap into hardware and GB300 chips housed at SpaceX’s Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.

More SpaceX

- SpaceX shares were as high as $220 post IPO.

- Sharea ahve been down over the past 3 days.

- Most that got in POST IPO probably bought in at about $162-$165

- Newsline: SpaceX shares slipped for a third straight day, shedding hundreds of billions of dollars in market value, after the company said it is selling investment-grade bonds for the first time.

- The stock fell 16% Monday to close at $154.60, the lowest level since the company’s first day of trading, pushing its three-day loss to 23% and erasing over $600 billion in value over that period.

- SpaceX is seeking to raise at least $20 billion from the first bond offering to fund its artificial-intelligence ambitions.

Missed Opportunity

- Short the Mattress companies he said......

----- Got squeezed out....Never to return

Swing and a Miss

Maybe Because this can happen...

- Shares of Getty Images Holdings Inc. soared as much as 145% on Monday after it announced a licensing deal with OpenAI.

- Getty said that images from its library will appear in the search and discovery features of ChatGPT, marking a key reversal for the firm.

- The partnership with OpenAI could improve “licensing optics” and shift the narrative on the stock, according to analyst Mark Zgutowicz.

- Getty shares were up 118% to $1.32 as of 12:44 p.m. in New York, putting them on track for the best session since July 2022. The stock had fallen about 55% this year to close at 61 cents on Thursday before the Juneteenth holiday weekend began.

KOREA - SK Hynix

- New #1 in South Korea: SK Hynix surpassed Samsung Electronics on Monday to become the country's most valuable listed company.

- Remarkable turnaround: A striking reversal for a chipmaker that nearly collapsed under heavy debt roughly two decades ago. (CYCLES)

- AI memory leader: Now the dominant supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips powering AI systems.

- Marquee customers: Key buyers include Nvidia (NVDA) and Alphabet's Google (GOOGL).

- Massive 2026 rally: Shares are up more than 340% year-to-date, fueled by the global AI boom.

- Market cap milestone: Valuation now exceeds both Samsung and Micron (MU).

Markets Get Chopped

- Questions being asked about if AI spend boom producing fast enough return

- Back to earth on valuation scare - (all of a sudden?)

- KOSPI down 11%

- Chips getting hit - 12% for Memory ETF

- MU down 9%, Intel 4%, ASML 7%

RAM Prices...

- Looking at some additional RAM today for some office computers ....

--- ARE THEY KIDDING?

RAM Prices
Imminent Collapse????

- President Donald Trump said the prospect of global economic collapse was a big reason he signed an interim peace deal with Iran.

- According to sources, the deal reopened the Strait of Hormuz and set in motion waivers for sanctions on Iran’s oil sales to the international market, with the effect being an immediate drop in oil prices and a rise in US stocks.

- The agreement has been seen as skewed in Iran’s favor, giving the country broad gains before the next round of talks, and has prompted pushback and anger from Republican lawmakers.

- MOU signed lat Wednesday - also now more waivers of sanctions on sale of Iranian oil - 60 day reprieve.

China

- Weak economic conditions

- H Shares about to enter bear market

- Hong Kong

- Close to a technical bear market, dragged down by weak domestic consumption, a struggling property sector, and an exodus of funds fleeing "old tech" for AI plays elsewhere in Asia.

- A-shares are listed in mainland China (Shanghai/Shenzhen) and primarily target domestic investors. H-shares are listed in Hong Kong and are freely available to international investors

More China

- Retail sales declined for the first time since December 2022, dropping 0.6% from a year earlier.

- China’s urban fixed-asset investment contracted 4.1% as of end-May, dragged by real estate and manufacturing.

- Manufacturing fixed-asset investment contracted for the first time since December 2020.

- Industrial output was the lone bright spot, rebounding from April’s near three-year low.

- The national unemployment rate fell to 5.1% in May, compared with 5.2% in April.

Marrrr Jonggg

- Mahjong can be highly addictive due to its rewarding blend of strategy, luck, and social interaction. The rapid tile-drawing, need for pattern recognition, and "just one more round" mentality trigger dopamine releases. If compulsive play disrupts your finances or daily life, it can become a behavioral addiction requiring intervention.

- Tactile and Auditory Appeal: Many users on community forums like Reddit agree that the physical weight, texture, and distinct clinking sound of shuffling tiles provide soothing, sensory satisfaction.

- There has been a 70% surge in mahjong content on TikTok in the past year

- Yelp recently named the Chinese tile game a top trend of 2026, noting that searches for mahjong clubs surged 4,467% year over year for the period from September 2024 to August 2025 and that searches for mahjong lessons rose 819%.

Alphabet - WHAT>????*&*^

- Alphabet shares slid 7%, on track for the search giant’s worst day in a year.

- Alphabet’s Google has seen consecutive high-profile researchers leave in the last several days.

- The company also has exposure to the market’s concerns around commoditized AI and ballooning capital expenditures.

- The share slide also came on the heels of a Sunday Wall Street Journal interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who called for less dependence on “AI Giants” and said the AI market was commoditized.

Back to Oracle

- Oracle reduced workforce by 21,000 employees over past twelve months.

- Cuts broader than previously disclosed, driven by artificial intelligence adoption.

- Global headcount fell from 162,000 to 141,000 full-time employees year-over-year.

- Workforce reductions generated $1.8 billion in restructuring costs, company reported.

- Company warned AI deployment may continue resulting in workforce reductions.

NVDA - Underperforming

- Nvidia shares slipping recently despite remaining up about 12% in 2026.

- Stock down roughly 3% past month, underperforming semiconductor peers.

- SMH ETF surged 84% year-to-date, gaining 15% last month.

- Traders predict Nvidia chip pricing power is beginning to decline.

- Wall Street focus shifting toward memory and infrastructure AI buildout.

- Micron and Sandisk shares jumped nearly 60% over past month.

Gloom and Doom

- JCD sent interesting take from Chris Bloomstran

- Traditionally asset light companies with all sorts of revenue, high margins now....

---- Converting into asset heavy with no real understanding of what the profitability or even revue will be in the future

----- Here are the highlights of his commentary we can explre:

------------AI buildout shifting markets from asset-light toward capital-intensive infrastructure cycle

- Hyperscaler capex surge reflects move into heavy, long-duration asset base

- Massive capital requirements challenge economics versus prior asset-light models

- Depreciation burden rising sharply as infrastructure scales across AI ecosystem

- Returns depend on utilization of expensive, long-lived physical compute assets

- Asset-heavy cycles historically lead to overbuild, weak returns, eventual consolidation

- Infrastructure spending absorbing nearly all operating cash flow for hyperscalers

- Off-balance-sheet financing masking true scale of capital intensity shift

- AI economics hinge more on physical capacity than software-driven scalability

- Echoes of past asset-heavy booms with eventual oversupply and value destruction

Amazon Day - Today - June 26th

- US consumers will spend $26.3 billion online at Amazon and other retailers during the four-day sale, up 9% from last year’s event in July, according to Adobe Inc.

- About 201 million Amazon shoppers in the US were Prime subscribers as of March, up about 3% from a year earlier

- Amazon will capture about 60% of all US online spending during Prime Day, its highest market share since 2019, according to estimates from EMarketer Inc.

Chevron and Microsoft

- Chevron Corp signed 20-year deal with Microsoft for data center power.

- Agreement supplies natural-gas fired generation for massive West Texas facility.

- Project Kilby expected online 2028, ramping to 2.67 gigawatts.

- Full output enough to power more than 530,000 Texas homes.

- Chevron partnering Engine No. 1, final investment decision planned later.

- Deal follows prior reports of exclusive long-term power negotiations.

More Oil News - Drill baby Drill

- Interior Department cutting federal drilling bonds by 95% to spur exploration.

- Required bond drops from $500,000 to $25,000 for leases.

- Bonds ensure cleanup costs don’t fall on taxpayers if wells abandoned.

- Policy change aims to encourage more oil and gas development.

- Proposal subject to 60-day public comment after Federal Register publication.

FedEx Earnings

- FedEx posted strong fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday in the company’s last quarter that included the freight business before its spin off.

- FedEx Freight spun off into a separate publicly traded company on June 1.

- The company said it saw a 3% year-over-year increase in domestic volume.

- Stock down 6% A/H

 

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ANNOUNCING the THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN

for SpaceX (SPCX)

Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!

 

 

FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS

 

See this week’s stock picks HERE

Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Let’s Make a Deal!

News Dominated by … SpaceX

This week – Fed rate Decision

Need a new CTP (SPACEX?)

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts!

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

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Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter

Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Warm-Up

- Let's Make a Deal!

- News Dominated by ... SpaceX

- This week - Fed rate Decision

- Need a new CTP (SPACEX?)

Markets

- Another V Formation - Nearing Highs again

- IPO Madness - Anthropic and OpenAi

- SpaceX IPO - could drain markets

- More AI valuations through the roof

DEDICATION: Stu Schifter - my good friend of 30 years passed away last night... battled Cancer for 2 years.

Market Valuations

- S&P 500 Forward P/E = 22.5

- 10-yr average =  19–20x

- Long-term average 18-19

- Not cheap, pricing in a lot of earnings growth.

- NASDAQ 100 forward P/E =  23-24

- 1-yr average   ~23x

- 20-yr average  ~20–21x

- Not screaming expensive on a forward basis

- - NOTE: Training P/E = 33-40

NEW Playbook

- But the Rumor and Buy the News

- used to be Buy the Rumor and Sell the News

- This is why there is an announcement about something and then a date to follow....

- Monday = Deal, Friday = signing

On that note

- What is the deal anyway?

- Seems that we  (USA) moving out our navy before the final

- Straights of Hormuz opening -??

- Has anyone seen the text?

- We are no better than we were before all this started...

Headline Nonsense

- Fox Business: Beware the ticking time bomb hiding in your 401(k)

- Required minimum distributions can trigger taxes on Social Security benefits and boost Medicare premiums

- This is not a ticking time bomb. This is just reality when you have a lot saved and need to start withdrawals

- HOWEVER - there are ways around this and we have helped clients with this.

- - Listeners - if you have a 401k and think that you will be paying too much later on - we can take a look at the options...

More Retirement Alerts

- Social Security running out again....

- Less that 10 year until the reserves are exhausted

- The Social Security Administration’s newly released 2026 Trustees Report confirms that the federal retirement safety net is less than seven years away from fiscal depletion, as the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund will completely exhaust its accumulated reserves in the fourth quarter of 2032.

- Once the reserve dries up, ongoing tax revenues will cover only 78% of scheduled retirement benefits, according to the report.

- Some of the blame is being laid on the OBBBA with higher standard deductions and lower taxes on SS Benefits

- "The OBBBA also adds a temporary additional standard deduction for taxpayers over age 65," it says. "As a result, less income tax will be paid on Social Security benefits, and the OASI and DI Trust Funds will receive lower levels of revenue in the future from income taxation of Social Security benefits."

PSA

- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified a recall of more than 900 cases of Alfredo sauce at its highest risk level after a supplier recalled a dry milk powder ingredient used in the product due to potential salmonella contamination.

- The FDA designated the recall as a Class I event, its most serious classification, meaning there is a reasonable probability that use of or exposure to the product could cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

- The Coffee Connexion Co., Inc.

- According to the FDA, the product was distributed in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Monday Markets

- 5:45PM Sunday night we see an announcement that there is a Deal!

- Why 5:45PM????????

- Futures rally, oil drops

- This is just days after the market already surged after a Truth Social post last Thursday that said that the US will "soon" sign a deal with IRAN

---- That pushed up markets quite a bit too

- Buy the rumor and buy the news...

Reality Check

- Thursday: Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that “we have a deal that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

- Monday: 60-day period delay to continue discussions of nuclear issues

- Is there a sucker in all of this?

$ for IRAN

- Supposedly there i some deal...

- A $300 billion private fund designed ?to trigger investment into Iran is outlined in the U.S.-Iran framework agreement and more than half that sum has already been committed, a source with ?direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters.

- The fund is designed to give both sides an economic incentive to conclude a final deal, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not yet been announced as Washington and Tehran prepare to sign on Friday.

SpaceX

- IPO - Finally!

$135 per share - Rose to $160+/- on the debut day

- Rather smooth process and very orderly

- A total of $85B was raised - due to an add-on additional green-shoe that was allowed ($10B) for institutions.

- Rose another $20% on Monday

- Retail got about 20% of the deal (down from 30%)

Oracle

- Oracle Corp. shares declined after the company reported quarterly capital expenses that were higher than estimates, raising investor concerns about the profitability of the AI infrastructure business.

- The company expects to spend about $70 billion on net capital expenditures in the current fiscal year, and plans to raise another $40 billion in equity and debt.

- Oracle's cloud infrastructure business gained 93% to $5.8 billion, and total cloud revenue is projected to jump about 61% in the quarter ending in August.

- The increase of $5B over the course of the year was disconcerting to investors.

- Shares dropped the most in over 6 months on the news

CPI and PPI

- May CPI was mixed but generally cooler on the core reading, with headline CPI up 0.5% month-over-month, matching consensus, while Core CPI rose 0.2%, below the 0.3% consensus and below Briefing's 0.4% estimate.

- The softer core CPI reading suggests some easing in underlying consumer inflation pressures, which is the more constructive part of the inflation picture.

- May PPI was firmer than expected on the headline reading, with PPI up 1.1% versus 0.7% consensus and 0.8% Briefing estimate, matching the prior month's revised 1.1% pace.

- Core PPI rose 0.4%, matching consensus and coming in below the prior month's revised 0.7%, indicating wholesale inflation remained elevated but did not accelerate further on the core measure.

- Taken together, the CPI and PPI reports point to a mixed inflation backdrop: consumer-level core inflation looked somewhat better, but producer-level price pressures remained sticky.

Cyberdyne

- Anthropic announced Claude Fable 5, a Mythos-class model that will be available to its enterprise customers and paid subscribers.

- The company unveiled Mythos in April and has limited the rollout because of its advanced cybersecurity capabilities.

- Anthropic said Claude Fable 5?s broad release is possible because of new safeguards that block responses in specific high-risk areas.

- WAIT! The US government PULLED the plug on Mythos and Fable for any foreign national

- From Anthropic - The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected.

OpenAi

- Confidentially flies for IPO

- Sends financials and IPO materials to regulators - making sue all in good order.

- This allows the company to iron out accounting, compliance, and regulatory issues in private without triggering a "media circus" or alerting competitors to their financials

Last Friday.....

- Nonfarm payrolls jumped a seasonally adjusted 172,000 for the period, down slightly from the upwardly revised 179,000 in April and far above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 80,000.

- The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, as expected.

- Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% for the month and were up 3.4% over the past year, both in line with the Wall Street consensus.

Screwworm

- The New World screwworm has been detected in a 3-week-old calf in Zavala County, Texas, the first known case of that fly in the United States since 2017.

- New World screwworm larvae “burrow into the flesh of living animals, causing serious damage to livestock and economic losses,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

- The USDA and Texas officials are taking immediate action to contain and eradicate the pest.

- In December, the Food and Drug Administration granted conditional approval to the topical solution Exzolt Cattle-CA1, which is used to prevent and treat New World screwworm infestations and is produced by Merck & Co.

- What is going to happen to beef prices?

Real Estate

- Nationwide, 5.8% of all home listings were pulled off the market in April, according to Redfin.

- Delistings were up 3.8% compared with March.

- Atlanta saw the highest share of homes come off the market in April, with 1 in 10 delisted. San Jose, California, followed with roughly 9% pulled, then Los Angeles (7.8%), Dallas (7.8%) and Seattle (7.7%).

 In other news....

- The Japanese city of Utsunomiya has suspended all 94 of the primary and middle schools ?that it operates on Monday after its ?first-ever bear sighting, a municipal official said.

- The city of half-a-million residents about 100 km (60 miles) north of Tokyo said ?the bear was first seen in a residential ?area near a park on Saturday evening. It ?remains at large after the last sighting early ?Monday morning about half a kilometre from a ?middle school.

 

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Another good month – investors are giddy.

Oil – CRITICALLY LOW inventory (Inside Baseball).

Fed governor admits inflation is hard to control.

A major name says they are reducing stocks – but are they really?

Announcing the Winner of the CTP for Salesforce (CRM).

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Warm-Up

- Another good month - investors are giddy

- Oil - CRITICALLY LOW inventory (Inside Baseball)

- Fed governor admits inflation is hard to control

- A major name says they are reducing stocks - but are they really?

- Announcing the Winner of the CTP for Salesforce

Markets

- Huge reversal in Software stocks

- A few names on the move - and moving BIG!

- SpaceX IPO - could drain markets

- More AI valuations through the roof

Pizza Mouth !

Reversal

- Software stocks bounced this week on strong results from Snowflake and Okta, which both recorded their best days on record.

- The results signal that investors may have been too quick to declare the end of software with the emergence of artificial intelligence.

- Even as AI displaces certain tools and job functions, many software companies continue to show growth, assisted by their own AI products.

- The iShares Expanded Tech-Software exchange-traded fund rose 8% this week and closed May up 21%, the best monthly performance for the ETF since October 2001.

- With this month’s rally, the iShares software ETF is only down 3.8% for the year, still badly trailing the Nasdaq, which has gained 18% in 2026.

Snowflake

- Amazon said Wednesday that its cloud division has landed a $6 billion spending commitment from Snowflake, which includes the use of the company’s custom silicon and chips for artificial intelligence.

- Snowflake’s purchase of services and technology from Amazon Web Services will occur over five years, according to a press release about the agreement.

- Snowflake intends to expand its use of Amazon’s Graviton general-purpose chips, as well as cloud-based graphics processing units for AI.

- Snowflake and Amazon are frenemies - they compete but also partner with each other.

- Stock up 36% on this news

DELL!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Dell Technologies Inc. shares surged due to an outlook for annual sales that far surpassed expectations on demand for servers that power artificial intelligence work.

- Revenue in the fiscal year ending in January 2027 will be about $167 billion, including $60 billion from the sale of AI servers, topping analysts’ average estimate of $142.1 billion.

- The company booked $24.4 billion in AI orders and generated $16.1 billion in AI server sales in the quarter ended May 1, with Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke saying “The AI opportunity shows no signs of slowing.”

- The shares surged 33% to $420.91 at the close Friday in New York, the biggest single-day increase in the more than seven years since the hardware maker returned to the public markets after a five-year hiatus as a private firm.

- Up 150% YTD

More Dell

- New XPS 13 at $699 targets price-sensitive market

- Aims to compete with MacBook Neo, lower-end Windows devices

- Launch amid global memory chip crunch to gain market share

- WINING OVER JCD:

-- 13.4-inch screen (very compact footprint)

Options: 2K / 2.5K LCD (120Hz)

OLED touchscreen (higher contrast)|

- Very thin bezels ? almost edge?to?edge screen

- Weighs 2.2 lbs - one of the lightes out there and a rival to Apple's Macbook Neo

Infighting

- OpenAI may release multi-chip AI software, challenging Nvidia's (NVDA) ecosystem advantage, according to The Information

- Oh, and NVDA is now releasing a CPU for PCs that is aggrevating Intel and AMD

Kaboom!

- Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded in a massive fireball while undergoing a test on a Florida launchpad, dealing a major setback to the company.

- The explosion is the latest blow to New Glenn's reputation as a reliable alternative to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and Blue Origin’s launch schedule is certain to suffer significant delays.

- The incident will also affect Amazon’s ambitions to build out its Leo satellite network and may delay Blue Origin's role in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the moon.

- As important as it will be for Blue Origin to diagnose the cause of the rocket explosion, it could take many months to repair its launchpad in Florida.

Taking Down - Really?

- BlackRock Inc. is trimming its bet on stocks across its model-portfolio business as US equities surge to record highs following a strong earnings season.

- The firm cut its overweight position in equities from 3% to 1%, triggering billions of dollars of flows between BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds.

- BlackRock remains confident in equities and will maintain positions that bet on growing corporate profits, artificial intelligence and government spending, but is rotating away from longer-dated US debt in favor of global fixed-income and liquid alternatives.

Slight

- SpaceX is targeting a valuation of at least $1.8 trillion in its initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

- The company is seeking to raise as much as $75 billion, which would make it the biggest IPO of all time, and is expected to start formal marketing of its IPO as soon as June 4.

-SpaceX had $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, and the company's pitch to investors shows its evolution into an AI services and infrastructure giant with a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion.

- 3-5% of the shares will be floated (TIGHT)

Strategy: keep supply constrained, which:

supports price discovery

maintains founder control

creates early scarcity dynamics

- - - SpaceX has reserved 5% of the shares ?in its planned initial public offering for certain employees and individuals selected by its executive officers, exempting them from post-IPO lock-up restrictions

AND.. Even more Valuations

- AI giant Anthropic is now worth more than OpenAI.

- Anthropic announced a $65 billion Series H financing at a $965 billion valuation, a round led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital.

- The financing puts its valuation above that of rival AI lab OpenAI.

- The valuation has TRIPLED since February

Let's GO!

- Shares of LG Electronics surged as much as 24% after the company announced a series of automotive innovations built with technology from Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

- The company said its new range of solutions is built on Android automotive operating systems. Its system can control multiple displays with different aspect ratios at the same time by using a single-on-chip, which is different from other conventional in-vehicle display systems, LG said.

- But 24% on this news?

- More reason that the KOSPI is moving higher

No One Care - But...

- Inflation has been above the 2% target for 5 years now

- Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Thursday that bringing down inflation in the U.S. remains his top priority, warning that consumer prices are still “much too high.”|

- Speaking to CNBC’s Kaori Enjoji at the Bank of Japan-IMES Conference, Kashkari said that the U.S. central bank would continue taking a “balanced approach” to its dual mandate of price stability and full employment.

- 5 YEARS!

---- What that tells us is that the Fed is totally unable to do anything about inflation .... Are we the only ones that see that?

Inside Baseball

- From a colegie that will go un-named.

--- Let's just say he is someone who knows what they are talking about and runs BIG money

----- This is what he said to me.....

- Apparently, oil execs were opining with POTUS in meetings yesterday that oil inventories are at alarmingly low levels and oil prices could soon skyrocket (I might soften that language a bit but they know the oil biz better than me) if SoH does not open soon.

- I ran a few numbers on total oil inventories including and excluding the SPR.

- Total supplies are 10th percentile vs history (although that includes a period when the SPR ramped from 0 to 600mln barrels in the 1980’s).

- Today it is 4th percentile if you start from 1990 when the SPR was basically full.

- The 4 week net and % draw the last 3 weeks are the largest draws of all time.

- And not surprising the 1 week net and % draw of the SPR are also the 2 largest draws of all time the last 2 weeks.

Surprised - No....

--- This is another story similar to what we saw a few months ago

- Taiwan prosecutors suspect that three individuals smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp. AI chips to China after first exporting them to Japan.

- The trio was detained for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc. servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license.

- Taiwan authorities seized about 50 servers for which they accuse the trio of preparing fraudulent export documents, but at least one shipment had already gone through Taiwan customs and made it to Hong Kong.

Under/Over?

- Tesla will be somehow folder/merged or taken over by SpaceX in an all stock deal

- Tesla market cap is $1.6 Trillion so that will be a tough one to take on as SpaceX is about equal in size.

---- If this happens, when ?

Mini Retirement - Is this a THING?

- A mini retirement is when you take a planned break from working, usually for a few months to a couple of years, instead of waiting until age 65+ to fully retire.

- Tim Feerris popularized this... (4 day workweek dude)

Step 1: Work & save aggressively

2–10+ years

Build a specific “freedom fund”

Step 2: Take time off

3 months to 2 years

Travel, recharge, pursue interests, or experiment with new ideas

Step 3: Return to work

Same career… or pivot to something new

Then repeat if desired.

 

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Oil Drops – Still highest cost for Memorial Day in years

Consumer Sentiment Drops again

New Fertilizer coming – Kinda Soilent Green vibe

Everyone is talking about SpaceX

PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts!

Click HERE for Show Notes and Links

DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.

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Warm-Up

- Oil Drops - Still highest cost for Memorial Day in years

- Consumer Sentiment Drops again

- New Fertilizer coming - Kinda Soilent Green Concept

- Everyone is talking about SpaceX

Markets

- Nothing Really Matters - Anyone can see - New HIGHS

- Governments picking the winners again

- CHIPS !

- Concentration

NVDA

- Over the weekend, Jensen Huang said that his forecast of a $200 billion market for CPUs includes China, signalling Nvidia still sees significant long-term demand in the market amid ongoing U.S.-China technology tensions.

- During an earnings call on Wednesday, Huang said Nvidia's new "Vera" central processors give it access to a new $200 billion market.

- So, once again the PR machine is running overtime to make sure there is no reason for anyone to sell the stock - needed to make this clarification over the weekend

- Nvidia has received licenses from the U.S. government to sell its H200 chips but has not received approval from Chinese officials who are fostering China's own chip suppliers.

Consumers

- Consumer sentiment has tumbled to a fresh record low in May as fears of higher prices grow due to the U.S.-Iran war and elevated oil prices, the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers said Friday.

- The index of consumer sentiment fell to 44.8 from a preliminary reading of 48.2. It’s also well below the 49.8 level seen at the end of April.

Consumers Upset

South Korea

- Record after record...

- This is an impressive chart

- Two companies -Samsung and SK Hynix

-----40% of the entire KOSPI index's total market capitalization.

Kospi Index

Who Believes this Crap?

- U.S. forces have conducted “self defense” strikes in southern Iran early Tuesday, with U.S. Central Command saying that this was to “protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.“

- “U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” Hawkins added.

- Meanwhile there was some talk over the weekend that

--- 1) We are very close to a deal and it will happen soon

----2) We are in no rush for a deal

----3) How many times is this same line going to be used to try to push the price of oil down (it did move towards $90 after the weekend resumption of futures trading)

- Neither side can agree on anything... Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the United States has seen some progress towards a deal but that more work was required, while Iran's foreign ministry said the differences remained deep and significant.

- Tiresome

CEO of Ford

- Did you know -???

- The CEO of Ford (Jim Farley) is cousin to Chris Farley

Farley and Farley

Crops

- Farmers worldwide are under pressure due to the Iran war disrupting supplies of conventional nitrogen fertilizers, forcing them to improvise ahead of the fall planting season.

- Some farmers are turning to age-old solutions like manure, while others are experimenting with newer technologies, including waste-based inputs and microbial products.

-----Circular bio-economy

The crisis is giving fresh momentum to products that have long struggled to gain widespread adoption, with demand for biofertilizers and biostimulants rising and companies seeing rising interest and increased sales.

- Municipal wastewater and treated human urine, which contain high levels of nutrients that can be processed.

---- So, if your corn is a little extra yellow this summer - now you know...

Government's Hand

- Quantum computing shares popped last Thursday, as the U.S. government said it would award $2 billion in grants to nine firms operating in the space.

- IBM is the biggest beneficiary of the package, with the U.S. Commerce Department agreeing to give the firm $1 billion.

- Chipmaker GlobalFoundries is receiving $375 million, while other grant recipients D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Infleqtion will be awarded $100 million.

- Shares of D-Wave added 33%, Rigetti soared 30% and Infleqtion skyrocketed about 31%.

- Funding will come from the 2022 Chips and Science Act.

More Money Throwing

- Nvidia Corp. bought $500 million worth of rights for shares in Corning Inc. as part of a partnership to expand artificial intelligence infrastructure.

- Corning pledged to increase US fiber production capacity by more than 50% to supply more optical fiber for AI data centers.

- The partnership includes Corning's plan to construct three new complexes in North Carolina and Texas, which is estimated to create more than 3,000 new US jobs.

DEBT

- Global debt hits new record, IIF (institute for International Finance) report shows

- Global debt rose for a fifth consecutive quarter in Q1 2026, increasing by more than $4.4 trillion to a record high of over $350 trillion, with the increase concentrated largely in the United States and China.

- Investors shows signs of shift away from Treasuries

- Global debt-to-GDP ratio stable around 305%

- NOTHING TO SEE HERE

Global Debt

More Charts

AI Reality?

- Starbucks retires AI tool nine months after North American deployment

- Tool was part of CEO Brian Niccol's campaign to fix product shortages

- AI tool miscounted items, leading to errors, Reuters has reported

Starbucks cites need for consistency, supply chain improvements in ending program

More AI

- Elon Musk's Grok is seeing minimal adoption in US government - even though it's cheap-

- Grok lags far behind OpenAI and other rivals that analysts call more capable

- Data shows uptake by corporations is also weak, suggesting Grok's problems stretch beyond government

- Is it possible that corps don't trust Musk after the way he heavy handled the DOGE process?

- Is this going to impact SpaceX growth story?

Employment and Ai

- The co-founder of AI company Anthropic said on Monday that the development of artificial intelligence cannot be left solely to technology companies, urging greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society.

- Speaking at the presentation of Pope Leo's first encyclical, addressing the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, Chris Olah said there was "a real possibility" that AI will displace human labour "at very large scale".

Scared

- China is restricting overseas travel for top AI professionals in private firms, requiring them to get approval from relevant authorities before embarking on overseas travel.

- The government is targeting talent within the AI sphere, including startup founders, researchers, and executives, and adding individuals to the list based on assessments of their critical importance to the country.

- The restrictions risk undermining the ability of AI firms in China to recruit and retain talent, and may force engineers with global ambitions to choose between staying home or going abroad earlier in their careers.

CHIPS

- Micron topped a $1 trillion market value for the first time on Tuesday as shares popped 18%, driven by insatiable artificial intelligence demand for its memory chips.

- The stock surge came as UBS tripled its price target on the stock from $535 to $1,625 a share, citing long-term agreement opportunities with partially fixed pricing.

- “We believe the market will start to put a more ‘normal’ multiple on the stock and MU will continue to re-rate higher as more details emerge about the structural changes AI has driven to the entire memory complex,” the firm wrote.

SpaceX

- Lots of interest on this...

- Lots of clients calling on this and we are working on this for them

- Here is a bit of a reality check...

--- First - company still losing billions of dollars - some may look past that

- - Weird inclusion period for indices and that may take stock up due to required buying ahead of the inclusion (keeping a floor on prices in the beginning)

---- SpaceX plans to allow a large portion of its shares to become eligible for resale before the usual six-month restriction period post-IPO, under a staged system conditioned to the company's performance, a company filing shows.

- The approach, designed to avoid a large wave of shares hitting the market at once, would depart from the standard 180-day lock-up that has prevailed in the U.S. Most companies going public restrict early investors from selling shares to help stabilize the stock.

- Valuation somewhere between $1.5T and $2T (a year ago it was like $400 million)

- Valuation in December was $750 M

- Rationale for the big valuation: SpaceX is leveraging its satellite network to build massive, space-based AI data centers, which take advantage of limitless solar energy and off-planet cooling

Retail 

- Ross Stores Inc. raised its sales and profit guidance after first-quarter results surpassed consensus estimates, aided by strong customer traffic among younger shoppers.

- The company reported sales of $6.01 billion and earnings of $2.02 per share, with same-store sales growing 17% in the period, a record for Ross.

- Ross now expects full-year same-store sales to grow 6% to 7%, and earnings of $7.50 to $7.74 per share, with executives citing increased customer traffic as a key driver of profit.

Meanwhile

- Walmart issued a worse-than-expected financial outlook amid soaring gas prices.

- Finance chief John David Rainey said high tax returns may have muted some of the impact high gas prices had on shoppers in the first quarter, indicating consumer pressures could rise in the current quarter

- The big-box retailer issued fiscal first-quarter results that beat Wall Street’s expectations on the top line but were only in line on the bottom.

- The retailer said it’s expecting adjusted earnings per share to be between $2.75 and $2.85, lower than expectations of $2.91, according to LSEG.

- Walmart said it anticipates net sales will rise between 3.5% and 4.5% for the year.

Ferrari - Electric

- Ferrari (RACE) is trading lower today after the company unveiled its first fully electric vehicle, the Ferrari Luce, marking a major strategic shift away from its traditional combustion-engine supercar identity.

- The Luce is a four-door, five-seat ultra-luxury EV developed with former Apple (AAPL) design chief Jony Ive, featuring a quad-motor setup producing over 1,000 horsepower, a 0--60 mph time of roughly 2.5 seconds, and a price tag around $640,000.

- Despite these headline-grabbing performance specs, investors reacted negatively because the design is seen as a sharp break from RACE's iconic styling, with many critics arguing it looks closer to a mass-market EV than a traditional Ferrari.

Saying goodbye

- One of America’s once-dominant beer brands is being discontinued after more than 175 years.

- Schlitz Premium, a beer brand that traces its roots to Milwaukee in the 1840s and was once among the largest breweries in the country, is being put "on hiatus," parent company Pabst Brewing Co. confirmed Friday after Wisconsin Brewing Company announced it would brew the brand’s final batch later this month.

- "Unfortunately, we have seen continued increases in our costs to store and ship certain products and have had to make the tough choice to place Schlitz Premium on hiatus," Zac Nadile, Pabst head of brand strategy, said in a statement to Milwaukee Magazine.

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