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Laurie’s Abbreviation Index:

** ‘div’ – dividend 

** ‘m/m’ – month over month

** ‘y/y’ – year over year

** ‘Inven’ – inventories

** ‘mfg’ – manufacturing ** +/- – plus or minus, positive or negative

** Underlined text – higher volume premarket

** ‘d’ – day

** ‘Y’ – year

**govt – government 

Color Key: Positive – Neutral – Negative

Global Markets: USA, Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong – negative set-up

·       Commodities: Gold, Silver, Copper, Palladium, Oil, natgas, AGGS, Bitcoin

·       Yields: 30Y Bond -0.55% Currencies: USA$+0.20%, CAD -0.13% YEN -0.07%, BTC/USD-2.7% Vix:26.8

·       Events:USA: USA moving additional troops to middle east, increasing potential for some direct conflict on the ground and additional escalation.
Stock News: CCL-1.8% Earnings
Equity: Global indices lower as oil, yields, and US$ rising even though Trump extended his deadline to devastate Iran’s power infrastructure. USA is sending additional troops to the Middle East, and expectations from many are for the USA to engage ground troops, and of course, Iran will respond. Since Trump’s modus operandi is to attack on weekends, markets are on edge. Premarket, energy is leading as oil and natgas are higher, agricultural commodities are higher as fertilizer shortages can reduce yield, and gold is higher for a change. The trade is positioning for the USA war escalation is leading to globally higher inflation, food and energy shortages and lower growth. Large-cap tech remains under pressure with META dropping lower Thurs and today, security stocks are lower on a report of latest Claude security features with CRWD, PANW, FTNT all significantly lower. Memory inames distribution continuing as AI winners see profit taking. SPX positioning is precarious. On one hand, the JPM position at 6475 may provide support into the March quarterly expiration, but below that the support is scanty to 6300. Definite risk of a combination of an oil spike leading to a US$, Vix spike, which can lead to a large equity spike. Alternate possibility is a major bounce on some concrete news indicating a path to a resolution to the war. There was a large bump on Monday with a Trump tweet, but not with the latest tweet, so the credibility of the Trump tweets is diminishing. The market is still not pricing in an extended war with USA escalation, so one must be prepared for either outcome.

Stock NVDA, CTVA, CTRA, GLD, CRWD, PANW, MSFT, META  Speculative VG, CRCL, MSTR
Indices UNG, /CL, GLD, SLV, GDX, XLE, ETHE, IBIT, IGV, XLK, ARKF, SMH, ARKK, QQQ, IWM, TLT, MAGS, ARKX

S&P500 CARR, IR, MPWR, TFX, PNR, WAB, VRSN, IP, MKC, DOV, CRWD, PANW, FTNT, BIIB, HOOD, WDC, ENPH, NOW
Other AZN, VG, SNY, LI, STM, ERIC, CRCL, TSEM, TECK, MSTR, RDDT, BE, ASML, BCS, IREN, SAP, SOFI, JD, ARM

FCFS

First Cash operates pawn shops, which tend to do well when the economy slows and inflation increases. It’s a smaller company $8B market cap, so riskier, but as not a member of S&P500 is also not directly affected by weakness in large-cap tech or financials. High margin, modest valuation, and a 0.9% dividend. As of late has been range-bound and can be considered a position at the lower end of the range.