저자: Kevin · 외국인
요약 보기
Broadcom의 AI 투자 관련 대규모 자금조달(약 1,400억 달러)로 채권 금리 상승 압력과 '자금 부족' 우려가 제기되며, SpaceX 채권 하락으로 금리가 8%까지 올랐다고 설명. 이란 협상 진전 기대(20~27일 창), 내일 CPI는 불리하다는 전망, 10년물 금리 5.27 고점 후 하락 중이라 curve 평탄화를 긍정 신호로 봄. Apple과 Meta는 긍정적, 칩 관련주는 부진하다고 언급.
다듬은 글
We're back from vacation, which means the stock market should go up again, because that's the trend it's always been. But we need to fully catch up with everything that's happening, and therefore talk about the concerns about artificial intelligence. What's happening with Anthropic? What's happening with Broadcom?
What is happening with Iran and, accordingly, with oil prices? What's happening with the Fed? What's happening and what to expect from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) tomorrow? And, of course, all this is happening against the backdrop of the "great drain." This " big suck " is a bit like an unfortunate mistake.
Every time, and we keep saying this, this is probably the simplest thing we do at Alpha Report. I'll just say it openly, okay? I shouldn't do this, but I'll say it anyway. One of the easiest things about this "suck-up " is when the markets start to get excited about it , that is, about raising capital.
Think about what was involved. You have Broadcom raising funds from Anthropic, Broadcom from Oracle, and we're talking about $40 billion. Oh, sorry, Broadcom's involvement with Anthropic and one with OpenAI. The one with Anthropic was about $40 billion . You have these two investments, then an investment from Oracle is expected, and another 40 billion from SpaceX.
That's about $140 billion in funding announced in the last 7 days, and since the Oracle funding is still pending, we're including it here. This is a huge amount of capital that has to go into these bonds, and they are starting to offer higher yields because they are forced to do so. This is sucking money out of many stocks, except Apple.
Apple likes it when everyone else gets their capital sucked out. For some reason, people invest in Apple stock every time these kinds of deal announcements come out. So this turns out to be an easy thing to trade. We bounced off the 332 mark on the announcements of this " suck-up" last week. We said, "Hey, he's going to bounce here." It's optimistic for Apple, all these announcements, and, you know, the price has gone up 14 points since then.
And it seems this trend is continuing. So while Nvidia, AMD, or chipmaker stocks are suffering, Apple is showing good results. And, of course, people still choose some software companies, like Salesforce or Palantir. Or another one that we are very optimistic about is Meta. Well, in the last two Alpha reports we predicted a rebound in Meta shares, and both days we accurately predicted this growth.
We have really seen a rebound over the last two days. 717—this is the closing level about two days ago, two market days ago. We called for a bounce right after that, and it happened intraday. And this morning we predicted a rebound again, and it continued as well . So, why? Why, why is this happening?
What great fear reigns now? Well, the main fear is that the bond market is sending alarming signals about the situation getting worse . Look at SpaceX bonds. I wrote about this on Twitter yesterday. This is a somewhat narrow topic, but it is very important to the broader market, so I will explain. You can follow me on X under the nickname realKevM.
But look at this. SpaceX bonds continue to fall. So, this is the price of a 30-year SpaceX bond. SpaceX bonds fell from their face value of $100. Imagine you're starting at 100, okay ? It's like a race, you know? If you rise above 100, it means you are making money. If you fall below 100, you lose money.
But the lower the 100, the higher the yield for a new buyer, not the current owner. This is for a new buyer. So you got this collapse and kind of a hemorrhaging of SpaceX bonds, which are now down 14%, which is a lot for the bond market. This is approximately 14.8%. This raised the effective yield for SpaceX on 30-year debt to 8 %.
That is, these are the same rates as 30 years ago, and this is the interest rate at which SpaceX borrows. And so that, combined with yesterday's " hot hand" comments from Broadcom, which I think were misinterpreted , has raised some concerns about the hardware. Yesterday I wrote that people were panicking over Broadcom CEO's comments about casinos.
I actually find the CEO to be quite intelligent and apt, he is usually very straightforward and honest. And he was actually talking about the fear that comes up when one OpenAI investor says, "Oh, their gross revenue, net annual recurring revenue is $70 billion." "And another investor says, ' Well, I made a net income of $50 billion.' The fact that the entire stock market fell because of this concern, it seems, last Thursday or Wednesday, one of these days, was just ridiculous.
And he argues that a lot of people are just trying to play the stock market, that they're not really investing in the long-term AI that he's optimistic about. Obviously, he's saying that it's going to take time for the performance to prove itself, but overall we need to move from this memory shortage to a money shortage.
And so he's, I think, right on target, that the big " suck" that we've been talking about is exactly the shortage that the markets are facing right now: you need more money to pay for the continuation of this cycle. And that's partly what this CEO is trying to solve at Broadcom, because they're doing vendor financing deals where, you know, they're raising $40 billion to then sell the Anthropic chips.
So they're getting revenue today and then are left with a bunch of accounts receivable. Now the good news is that stocks like these are now down to a PEG ratio of 0.6. They're extremely cheap relative to expectations, and they should probably grow four or five times from where they are now. Assuming that the company continues to have some reasonable level of growth.
And that's one of the reasons we've seen this pullback: a lot of people are still thinking, "Oh, this growth can't go on forever." I'm thinking that the products that we're seeing from OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, or Muse are just continuing to get better. One of the reasons Meta's stock skyrocketed was the release of the " watermelon" model, which was codenamed, and it's really a marvel, a kind of cutting-edge AI from Meta, if you will.
I noticed that Meta also offers -- and this is not sponsored by Meta -- but they offer a free version : if you use Muse, you can get their max plan for free for a year. I don't know if it's showing up for everyone, but I saw it pop up and I thought it was brilliant because people would forget they signed up for it and then they'd have a renewal next year.
Brilliant way to get people used to the max and then they'd get trapped. Very smart of Zuckerberg. I'm pretty bullish on Meta. But then, all this "sucking" combined with some of the comments about " oh, there's a real casino there." It makes people very nervous about AI trading. I think that's why we're seeing some volatility, especially when you add in the Iran situation and the upcoming CPI data, which is a big factor.
I have a kind of bet right now that I'd like to make after the CPI comes out. And you know, a lot of people look at Cal-shi and say, "Oh, I don't know." Do I want to use Cal-shi? They say, "I like to use Cal-shi as a leading indicator of what people are thinking and where I can bet more or less than what's happening in the financial markets." So I personally expect that this number, the number of rate cuts, will drop sharply tomorrow after the CPI.
And I'm curious, depending on what the CPI is, I want to bet on that because I've played this before: I put in about $100 and doubled my capital because it was 9%. So I'm hoping for a return to that level and I'm a little excited about it. I haven't made any bets yet, and I think a lot will depend on tomorrow's CPI, which we'll talk about.
But I think it's interesting because we see that the markets are pretty confident that we're going to have a few rate hikes. We'll get a weak CPI and an Iran deal—and that's it . It'll be "done in one fell swoop," which is very exciting. Quick note: Cal-shi is a paid sponsor Reinvest. My startup gives you at cal-shi.com/r/meKevin.
Or you can use the code meKevin when you sign up to get it. But let's talk about expectations for Iran, because that's another big issue right now: What's going on with Iran? Why have n't we heard anything from Iran yet? Well, that also affects expectations for higher rate hikes, because I think what number is it today?
The 13th? Today is the 13th. I think the most likely, the best window for a deal to happen—and I've been saying this for a long time—is between the 20th and the 27th. The rationale for that time frame is that that's when the Federal Reserve meets. So if we get a hot CPI report tomorrow, the only thing that can offset it and allow us to avoid an interest rate hike in October is Donald Trump's deal with Iran.
So that window becomes extremely important. And if the CPI report tomorrow is not so hot , we could do a deal in the period before the midterm elections, which would potentially avoid a cut, excuse me, a rate hike. I meant a hike, if I said cut, you know what I meant—a hike. No hike in December. This is getting very important.
So where are we with Iran now? Well, we are in a phase of clear negotiations now, where Iran has reportedly accepted some of the US proposals, and the US has accepted some of the Iranian proposals , but there is still a lot of bellicose rhetoric in the media, particularly around what Iran is calling the incident in the UK a false flag operation, while MI5 is blaming Iran for an attempted attack that they diverted on an airbase that could have potentially targeted American bombers.
Iran says, "This is just an excuse to paint us in a bad light." At the same time, there is the concern that the Iranians are trying to increase their ability to disrupt the so-called shipping system in the Strait of Hormuz. This is essentially a situation where the United States provides insurance for ships and then escorts oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz with a blockade.
So there's talk of increased attacks here. At the same time, there's also talk of Iran strengthening its nuclear facilities and rallying its people to get back into action. It's all very similar to Donald Trump saying, "We're going to hit them again ." That's after the midterm elections. We're sending a third aircraft carrier to the region.
You're at a level of public engagement that I do n't think is representative of what's actually happening behind closed doors. I think behind closed doors, and I believe that, I'm willing to be wrong, but I don't think I'm wrong. I think the more aggressive this gets, the more rhetoric publicly, the closer we are to finishing the remaining details.
So this window between the 20th and the 27th is the target that I'm aiming for. Keep in mind that next week is not ideal, and we have the CPI report tomorrow, which we also have to talk about. But look at this, the 10- year is at 5.21. That's actually below my peak of 5.27. Well, my 5.27 has bounced back a little bit , but I've been talking about that peak for probably three weeks, long before anyone else started talking about it, and you know that because you're here.
So we're not trying to rewrite the past. All of my videos are available, you know, there are other YouTube channels that take down their old videos. All of my old videos are there. Almost all of them. There are a few that are not there because they were wrong or had to be taken down. For example, I did a video about Dave Ramsey once.
or Grant Cardone, and some of them might be missing. But I think 99.9% of my predictions that are right and wrong are still there, okay? I'm a big believer in that kind of transparency. I'd rather be transparent and be wrong than do what some channels do, financial or tax, where every few weeks they just delete their six-month- old videos.
It's crazy . You can look at Social Blade and see the views go negative. You'll see, like, minus 500,000 views . It's like, "Aha! Aha! Now we know what they're doing." But anyway, it's really interesting because we put it on the chart, and we noticed how fast it was going up. The 10-year yield used to look like this, the slope of the line, looked something like this.
And then we noticed that it was starting to flatten out. Well, not only was this line starting to flatten out , which is very positive signal, it actually started to turn down, which is very exciting, and I don't think many people are paying attention to it, but I think the 10-year market is telling us that we are getting closer to a deal with Iran.
Because think about it. The 10-2 spread is narrowing. We have 41 basis points of difference between them. Well, what the hell does that mean, Kevin? It's too complicated. Why is that happening? That's why it could potentially happen. Essentially, the 10-year is falling, okay? The 2-year is stabilizing.
What does that mean? When the 2-year is stabilizing and the 10- year is falling, that means the yield curve is flattening. And to some extent, it's a moderately positive flattening. What does that mean? Why is that happening? Well, I think it's because the long-term Treasury market is saying, " Okay, we're getting closer to a deal with Iran." We're getting closer to the peak, you know, the consumer price index.
Oil prices are near their peak. Because all of these things are near their peak, our inflation expectations may come down in the long run. But we still believe that to achieve that, we have to stabilize the Federal Reserve. The discount window rate has to be higher for a while longer. And that's where the 2-year bond is holding steady and the 10- year is starting to fall.
That's actually flattening the curve, which is a bullish signal. That's good. So I'm very happy to see that. Not just because I predicted that at 5.27 we would peak, and of course everyone wants to be right, but whether it was at 5.50 and I was wrong or at the level that I said I was right. The point is that the direction is right, and to me that's a signal that a deal is getting closer in the period between The 20th and the 27th .
Now the problem is that tomorrow we have the CPI report, which is quite unpredictable. We've talked about this in our Alpha membership about what can happen with the CPI report. I'm not going to go into it here, but I'll give you a little preview. Tomorrow is going to be a very strange CPI report. I've never seen a CPI forecast like this before, and I don't really like it.
I'll say this. It raises the risk that we're potentially going to have a little more trouble between the 20th and the 27th. So the situation right now, between today and the 20th, is not ideal, although the underlying economic data, thanks in large part to AI, is still holding up. If you haven't seen the ADP figures this morning, they were fantastic.
Well, to be fair , these are still the last week of September, so they're a little bit data-wise. We get the first October numbers next Tuesday, but almost no one pays attention to the weekly ADP numbers. I like that. Actually, I saw that we just had a revision. So we got 24.75k for the week, which is great.
A lot of that is, you know, AI and stuff. But the previous reading of 23.75 was actually revised up to 25.25. So that's pretty optimistic. So overall, that keeps me higher on the " bear" and "bull" scale. Now, on the CPI expectations, you can interpret that any way you want , but look at this. If you look at it, here's what's expected from the CPI month-over-month.
Here's what's expected from the core month-over-month. That makes it very difficult to win tomorrow. Because even if you have a low overall number, people want this one to be good too. And if it's 0.6 here—that's bad . So basically, Think about that for a moment. You know, above 0.6 is bad, you know?
At 0.6 it's bad, and even 0.5 is still bad. Right? So all of these numbers are bad. It's not good. And here, you've fixed the baseline at this awfully low level. To make people happy, you would have to have 0.1 or 0.0. Man, the expectations for tomorrow's CPI report are just awful . So they create some challenges and risks for us until we get a deal with Iran.
Of course, if there's no deal with Iran, we're going to have huge problems in the market because that means the 10-year bond could go up even more. There's been talk that we're becoming less dependent on Iran, which is true with our transportation operations and our escorts. But I think in the long run, Iran will do everything it can to get that leverage back.
In fact, that's the argument CSIS: We need to pay attention to the post-war threat to the energy infrastructure of the Persian Gulf. And Tehran’s greatest weapon has always been its ability to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz. And they will probably do everything they can to disrupt future pipelines as well.
But there is good news in that. The more pipelines we have in the future, with a potential increase in export capacity of 4 million barrels of oil by the end of 27 or another 7 million by the end of 28 , the better. Not only does that mean potentially more oil exports from the Middle East, but it also makes our exports more diversified—whether it’s through the Red Sea or the Mediterranean or somewhere else.
That’s a very positive signal , because now you’re spreading the risks that used to be concentrated in the Strait of Hormuz over many different pipelines. Pipelines, of course, are still vulnerable to attack, as we’ve seen in Saudi Arabia, but at least they don't kill sailors. Many of these pipelines are underground, so the only targets for attacks are gas stations or pumping stations, which are potentially easier to defend, and they're more spread out.
At best, you get a deal. But pipelines, as they point out here, are particularly valuable because they increase the number of export options, making it harder to completely cut off supplies. This is actually a very positive signal, because there were people who commented before, and I don't see their comments anymore, but they were like, "Oh, wait a minute ." Gaddafi says the Iranians are going to be the superpower in the Middle East." I understand that in the midst of a war, when the United States is retreating, people say, "Oh, the United States is going to lose." "They are outclassed by Iran." "And you know what?
It was probably a mistake to attack Iran. It was probably a mistake to just tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action without having a replacement, but that's all in the past. To be fair , the United States was really at a disadvantage this summer . Well, probably more like April. You know, March.
So, spring. So things weren't going so well for us. Now, however, we're in a much stronger position, where not only is there this naval blockade in place along with the economic sanctions, a blockade of cargo that's being transported internally. So technically it's not really "cargo," right? Because the cargo goes on ships , and the shipment goes on trucks.
Got it? And yeah, it's weird. Anyway, you have this problem with the transportation of trucks to and from Iran, whether it's across the borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq. Well, it creates problems for their supply chains, and there's even talk that the ayatollah was hinting at a negative impact on them.
So, it was either in the magazine or, let's see, here it is. Yes, here it is. The supreme leader of Iran praised the work of restoring their missile and drone facilities, but in early September he acknowledged the difficulties with the supply chains. The comments are related to the IRGC. It's an acknowledgement that the United States and its strategy are working more effectively against Iran than ever before.
And I'm not trying to praise the politician, you know, I'm a big fan of criticizing all politicians. Well, but I think Trump has finally put the United States in the best possible position to negotiate with Iran. So this idea of Iran becoming a superpower, I think , is overblown . I think it's easy to say when they're a little bit, you know, when they've gotten ahead for a while.
But I don't think that's going to be the long-term outcome. I think a lot of the Gulf countries are very angry about this disaster. I don't think they want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I think they're tired of Iran attacking. And diversifying and securing their infrastructure is exactly what they want to do.
It actually makes the whole Gulf region more resilient in the long run and will probably bring down oil prices even more . So I wouldn't be surprised if in the future there was this convergence of a lot of disinflationary factors that would lead to a significant drop in oil prices. You get AI-led deflation that comes after infrastructure, right?
And also, hopefully, lower oil prices, the impact of AI , some easing in interest rates. These are all things that lower costs for consumers, businesses, etc. All of which could lead to lower interest rates, which is great not just for real estate but for stocks, for the economy as a whole, without the fear that the Federal Reserve has to deal with inflation, and betting on the economy, you're not somehow going against the Fed, right?
Well, so all of that together creates the conditions that we're in today. Some uncertainty that we had over the weekend, which is understandable. I mean, Kevin finally went on vacation. We're back, so, you know, let's get through the CPI data, and then it should be fine. Well, but I'm optimistic. I've set a threshold for when we'll consider a buyout on the Alpha membership.
So if you're not with us yet, be sure to check it out by just going to meetkevin.com . That's always the easiest option . And also, if you want to get a free daily digest, you can subscribe to meetkevin.com/digest . You'll get some of the price benchmarks that we've talked about, and also a daily digest of new videos.
Get it for free, just subscribe here: meetkevin.com/digest. Enter your email address. Be sure to check your spam folder, because your first email will likely end up there. Mark it as not spam, complete the reCAPTCHA, and you'll be on the list and get this daily email, which is pretty cool. And yes, we'd love to see you there.
Here's the deal. Another thing to note: The Federal Reserve is in a unique position, realizing that it needs to raise rates because of geopolitical concerns and the rise in investment in AI. The problem is that the Fed can't control either of those. So they realize that they're raising rates, risking a job market collapse, trying to control something they can't control.
I think there's a huge desire to lower rates or stop raising them, and the best solution would be to get a deal done before the next Fed meeting. That makes the 20th to the 27th a very promising window, and judging by how things are going publicly, we're almost perfectly on track. we agree with that.
So I'm optimistic. I know not everyone shares that view, but I'm still optimistic and I'm very excited about it. So Scott says, "It sounds like a Volcker reversal." Well, that's interesting. This idea that Volcker needed to gain credibility. I don't know. Is that true ? Because remember, Volcker had to raise rates aggressively to gain credibility and deal with unmanageable inflation expectations.
To be fair, inflation expectations were rising recently until Kevin Warsh took over . Kevin Warsh acted decisively with the hike, but I really think they might be limited to just this one step. That's why I'm watching that Cal-Chi market, but you know, if there's a bad CPI report tomorrow, it's going to be a very volatile Cal-Chi rate.
So, I don't know. Maybe I should start setting up trade alerts. for your bets on Cal-Chi. This is another Reinvest One feature, is what I hear, Kevin? Are you going to add more features to Reinvest One? What? By the way, I'm a big fan of Boston, especially the Cambridge area, and, you know, near the river , that northwest part of Boston, and Salem was interesting, although it's a bit too crowded at this time of year .
But I'm a big fan. We had a great flight. I wasn't too optimistic about basic economy on American Airlines, but actually both of our flights were pretty good. So we're happy with them. I managed to do a lot of research. Lauren managed to get a good night's sleep, which is good, especially when you have seven kids.
But anyway, , the whole Reinvest terminal i—that's part of the research terminal. It's very exciting. All the courses, live streams for the participants in each course. Agent AI for consumers and Agent AI for businesses as well will be out early in the year. I can't wait to see you there. email us at [email protected]. Thanks for being here. here, .
Comments 0