TOPLEY’S TOP 10 March 27 2024

1. Annual IPO Activity 2000-2024

Dorsey Wright  Will IPO Market Launch with Reddit?

https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/nasdaq-dorsey-wright


 

2. Days Since 2% Correction

Michael Batnick Irrelevant Investor

https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/


3. Three Events That Cause Corrections

Marketwatch By Joseph Adinolfi

PIPER SANDLER-The team found that, without exception, each of these selloffs has been primarily driven by one of three things: rising unemployment, rising bond yields or some kind of global exogenous shock. Sometimes, it has been a combination, as was the case during the two equity-market corrections that occurred during 1980.  So, which is most likely to trigger the next 10% correction? According to Kantrowitz and his team, rising yields are the biggest threat to tranquil markets. Rising yields also caused the most recent correction, which ended on Oct. 27 with the S&P 500 down 10.3%.

Over the past two years, equities’ sensitivity to higher yields has reached near-record levels last seen near the peak of the dot-com bubble on a rolling 26-week basis. This suggests stocks could still react negatively if long-term bond yields continue to climb, even though equities have been largely immune to the rebound in yields since the start of 2024.

“We’ve written a lot about how rate-sensitive equity markets are today. As such, the biggest risk that we see to equities in 2024 would be a rise in rates,” Kantrowitz and his team wrote.

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-could-spark-the-next-stock-market-selloff-heres-what-history-tells-us-c3a0423e?&mod=home-page


4. Laggard Sector Big Pharma-Pipeline of Drugs

Rich Wolf-Capital Group

https://www.capitalgroup.com/institutional/insights.html?cid=p73051056575&ad_id=622236981781&ext_id=&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw5ImwBhBtEiwAFHDZxyV7ayRhZy9KO1hTypbedjGEQJZNZ1-s5VT15F4NN5QiL-sRb_2MQRoCzkAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds


5. Apple Stock -14% from Highs

4 lower highs..see if it breaks Nov. 23 levels.


6. It’s a Trader Nation

Zerohedge-Stock Holding Periods About to Make New Lows.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/technical-measures-and-valuations-does-any-it-matter


7. Sales Growth Projections from Tech Themes

Global X Research

https://www.globalxetfs.com/the-next-big-theme-march-2024/


8. ChatGPT Use Update

Pew Research

ChatGPT use has ticked up since July, particularly among younger adults

 


9. Swiss Watches: Market Share by Brand in 2023

Visual Capitalist By Marcus Lu

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/swiss-watches-market-share-by-brand-in-2023/


10. Execution Shortcuts on the Path to Business and Career Success-INC.

EXPERT OPINION BY MARTIN ZWILLING, FOUNDER AND CEO, STARTUP PROFESSIONALS @STARTUPPRO

Businesses always seem to take longer to succeed than a new owner expects. Seth Godin once said that overnight success in startups takes about six years, and Seth is an optimist. Thus we all look for shortcuts. Execution shortcuts would be hidden strategies to achieve the endgame sooner, without losing 40 to 60 percent of the financial potential along the way.

The short answer is that there is no magic. But there is consensus from the experts that human dynamics are more the key and the problem, rather than any particular business strategy or tactic. The classic book, The Execution Shortcut, by Jeroen De Flander, a well-respected writer and speaker on business strategy execution, offers some good insights and examples.

If you aspire to get a better return from your strategy, De Flander and I agree that you must learn to position your strategy to capture the head, heart, and hands of your constituents. They need a full sense of awareness of where you are going, to care deeply about it, and to maintain the highest energy to drive it. Here are 10 ways he offers for a professional to enhance his/her strategies:

  1. Facilitate small choices that get you closer to the finish line. Provide prioritization guidelines to align day-to-day choices with the big choices. To make the right big choice, everyone needs to know whom to focus on, and how to offer unique value to constituents in the chosen segment. When to say no is also a critical part of any strategy.
  2. Keep the big choice clearly visible in all your actions and communications. People shorten and package messages all the time, causing message distortion that can hide the core of your big idea. So don’t pass messages down the line. Talk directly to every key constituency often, and make your messages as sticky as possible.
  3. Draw a finish line so key people know the real objective. Capture the core of your strategy and show everyone in an inspiring way what strategy success looks like. Everyone works harder when they know who’s winning and the distance to the end. The right finish line also motivates and gives purpose to those traveling the execution road.
  4. Define lead indicators, and regularly re-measure distance to the finish line. Everyone needs a limited set of lead indicators to provide feedback and allow recalibration based on things learned along the way. Remove old signposts to prevent confusion, and work to prevent information overload.
  5. Share strategy stories for stickiness and heart connections. Story wrappers add context and emotion to the strategy to make people feel and remember the core message.People want to see what kind of small choices they have to make to contribute to the big choice.
  6. Climb the micro-commitment ladder with full engagement. Don’t settle for small commitments on big things. Go after big commitments on small things. The highest rung on the commitment ladder is “Yes, I will get it done no matter what.” This is the only level that represents full ownership of the task, and execution responsibility has really shifted.
  7. Go beyond self-interest to boost belief in others. The key to success is belief. Celebrating small successes along the road makes people believe they can achieve big success at the finish line. Success is a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing people to dig deeper, recover faster, and keep going longer.
  8. Constantly tackle complexity as your business grows.Complexity is the biggest performance killer in organizations. Embrace simplicity to create the most productive working environment. Be constantly on the lookout for best practices and tools to improve your strategy execution.
  9. Experience the power of habits to automate decisions.Each overt decision we make demands mental strength, and when there are too many decisions to take, our reserves run out. Remember how draining your first day on a new job was. Quickly the small decisions become habits. Group habits become your company culture.
  10. Find your seven-day rhythm. A daily rhythm or schedule creates habits faster but is unrealistic in most business environments. A seven-day rhythm provides regular repetitions and follows a more normal business flow. Be sure to connect decision horizons and find a spot for strategy in everyone’s weekly agenda.

We have all seen businesses and new ventures with great ideas that never seem to reach the finish line, while others with more mundane solutions seem to take some hidden path to success. In my experience, like that of De Flander, the difference is almost always related to the leader and their execution strategy, more so than to the solution provided.

The next time you talk to a potential client or investor, spend more time on your execution dynamics and less time on the product pitch. I suspect it will be a shortcut to at least the initial phase of your new venture, and probably long-term business success as well.

Now accepting applications for Inc.’s Best Workplace awards. Apply by February 16 for your chance to be featured!

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

10 Execution Shortcuts on the Path to Business and Career Success | Inc.com

 

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 March 26 2024

1. Short-Term Overbought

Bespoke Investment Group
Here in the US, it was a broad rally last week as Real Estate was the only sector ETF to finish in the red, and seven of eleven sectors rallied over 1%, including three that were up over 2.5%. Normally, when you have a big gain in the market like last week, you can expect to see Technology at the top of the performance list, and while the 2.25% gain for the sector was pretty much right in line with the S&P 500, it was ‘only’ the fourth best-performing sector on the week. On a YTD basis, Technology ranks as just the fifth best-performing sector, and six other sectors are more extended relative to their 50-day moving average.  Technology has been far from a dog lately, but it’s certainly given up some of its leadership position, and it’s understandable with several of the mega-caps now in the crosshairs of US and EU regulators.

Read today’s entire Morning Lineup.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/bespokes-morning-lineup-3-25-24-a-world-of-overbought


2. Not Sure About Defaults But Chart Tells the Story on Who Owns CRE Debt

From Barry Ritholtz Blog

https://ritholtz.com/2024/03/weekend-reads-606/


3. Homebuilders Keep on Trucking ..Straight Up


4. This May Be Why Fed is Lowering Rates….Housing and Commercial Real Estate


5. MSTR +675% One-Year

WSJ Jason Zweig
The company said this week that, as of March 18, it held 214,246 bitcoin. At the digital currency’s average price this week of roughly $65,000, MicroStrategy’s trove is worth something close to $14 billion.
Adjusting for debt and options that can be converted to shares, the stock has a total market value of about $33 billion. That’s about twice the value of MicroStrategy’s remaining software business and all its bitcoin holdings combined.
MicroStrategy has funded its bitcoin buying by issuing more than $5 billion in stock and debt.  Normally, companies dilute their earnings per share when they issue extra stock. MicroStrategy’s stock offerings, however, have been anti-dilutive. By issuing shares at such a high premium to the value of its bitcoin, and then pouring the proceeds into more bitcoin, which in turn has risen even higher, MicroStrategy has driven up its stock price.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/microstrategy-bitcoin-michael-saylor-e851eb56?st=txvto7un5mhg6qn&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink


6. EV Car Update

By Ryan Boyle of Northern Trust

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2024/03/26/u-s-ev-sales-need-boost


7. Lithium ETF $80 to $40


8. Government Highways and Streets are Old


9. Everybody Passes in America

The Daily Shot Blog Food for Thought: Trends in US high school graduation rates and SAT scores over time:

Source: The Economist


10. Common Causes of Bad Decisions

Farnam Street Blog 

1. Not asking, “and then what?”
2. Blindness to large trends (blind spots)
3. Assumptions based on small sample sizes
4. Conforming to expectations/authority/group
5. Wanting the world to work the way we want rather than the way it does.”

https://fs.blog/

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 March 25 2024

1. Small Speculators in Stock Futures Most Bullish Ever

From Callum Thomas Chart Storm @Callum Thomas (Weekly S&P500 #ChartStorm)

I am not familiar with this indicator but interesting.


2. Apple App Store Billing Have Doubled in 4 Years

Apple under fire for taking 30% commissions on App store.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-doj-monopoly-lawsuit-stock-trouble-5355d561?mod=past_editions


3. Three of the Mag 7 Stocks in Bottom Quartile of S&P 500 Performance 2024

Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/nvidia-meta-stock-gains-turn-magnificent-seven-into-two?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=GGda9y2L


4. Insider Selling in Technology Stocks Highest in 3 Years

Dave Lutz Jones Trading
The FT reports Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a parade of corporate insiders who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their companies’ shares this quarter, in a signal that recent stock market exuberance could be peaking. As markets hit record highs, the ratio of corporate insider selling to insider buying is at the highest level since the first quarter of 2021, according to Verity LLC, which tracks insider trading disclosures. Stock sales at the beginning of a calendar year are normal, with pent up demand in early 2024 being exacerbated by shareholders avoiding sales last year because of depressed company valuations.


5. China Takeover Hanging Over Taiwan Markets But Rallying Toward Previous Highs

Taiwan ETF held blue trendline going back to 2015

www.stockcharts.com


6. Chinese Gold Imports Surge

Gold making new highs


7. The Growth of Restrictive Trade Regulations

RBA Advisors

US Industrial Renaissance: It’s a matter of national security (rbadvisors.com)


8. Bonds Helping Pensions Funds Get Back to Fully Funded

Barrons By Allan Sloan
Ten years ago, in 2014, JPMorgan Chase, which gathers statistics filed by the country’s 100 biggest corporate pension funds, showed them to be 82% funded. As of the end of last year, they were up to 99.5%—essentially fully funded. (We’ll discuss the drop from 2022 to 2023 in a bit.)

https://www.barrons.com/articles/pension-funds-underfunding-fed-interest-rates-cc0c89b5?mod=past_editions


9. Who is Buying Treasuries?

WSJ By Eric Wallerstein

https://www.wsj.com/finance/the-27-trillion-treasury-market-is-only-getting-bigger-a9a9d170


10. How to Delegate

https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnellychris/

Top 10 Friday March 22 2024

1. Apple News.

Axios-Ashley Gold and Ryan Heath

https://www.axios.com/2024/03/21/apple-lawsuit-doj-antitrust-iphone-monopoly

Chart Held November Lows on First Test

2. 52-Week Highs Best in 3 Years.

3. Emerging Markets 4th Attempt to Break Above These Levels Since 2022

4. Argentina Breaking-Out to New Highs Under President Javier Milei

5. Follow Up to Yesterday’s Buyback Comments…Buybacks to Grow 13% This Year.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-925-billion-reason-why-investors-may-see-the-stock-rally-build-in-2024-7d6e0f08?mod=home-page

6. Investors Don’t Care About Defensive Sectors Right Now.

Allocations to defensive sectors break to new lows

https://www.topdowncharts.com/

7. Longest Inverted Yield Curve in History.

Jim Reid Deutsche Bank

8. Public vs. Private Market Size.

Torston Slok-Apollo

9. Nobody Expects Inflation to Increase.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

10. Oakland Coach Greg Kampe Makes Less Than Players and Assistants in Today’s Division I Basketball.

Greg Kampe salary

Per information obtained by USA TODAY Sports’ Steve Berkowitz, Kampe had a base salary of $329,609 this season. Per Berkowitz, there are also bonuses of up to 19.9% of his salary built in, but the specifics of those escalators are unknown. That is seemingly by design.

By comparison, Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua had a base salary of $900,000 this season. Calipari, for his part, has a $34.97 million buyout as of April 1 for the Wildcats. His base salary was $8.54 million, second-highest in college basketball. Izzo is third at $6.2 million, while Bill Self at Kansas leads the way at $9.63 million.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/2024/03/21/greg-kampe-salary-oakland-basketball-coach-kentucky-march-madness-ncaa-tournament/73062588007/

Top 10 March 21 2024

1. Tech vs. the Rest Forward P/E Ratio …28.9x vs. 18.3x

Jeremy Schwartz Wisdom Tree


2. Office Market 90 Day Delinquency Rate


3. How Does Goldman Sachs Make Money?

Wall Street Oasis https://www.linkedin.com/company/wall-street-oasis/


4. The Biggest Alternative Allocation for Wealth Americans is Real Estate

From Barry Ritholtz The Big Picture Blog

Wealthy investments in alternatives include some VC, PE, and hedge funds, but the bulk is in real estate

Source: @dollarsanddata
https://ritholtz.com/2024/03/sunday-reads-363/


5. Demand for Bitcoin ETF Reverses Overnight


6. $10.56 Trillion in 401k Like Plans and It Keeps Coming Every 2 Weeks

Irrelevant Investor Blog @michaelbatnick

A tidal wave of money is pouring into the market with every paycheck millions of Americans receive. At the end of the 4th quarter, there was $10.56 trillion in Defined Contribution Plans. I don’t think it matters much* whether this money goes into actively managed mutual funds or index funds. The fact that it’s coming in, in this size, every two weeks come hell or high water, is absolutely having an impact on the price of stocks. Specifically, the price relative to whichever underlying fundamental metric you prefer to measure.

Why Are U.S. Stocks So Expensive?


7. Chipotle 50 to 1 Stock Split …


8. U.S. Transportation Investments

RBA Advisors

US Industrial Renaissance: It’s a matter of national security (rbadvisors.com)


9. Reddit IPO

FINANCE

The site that fueled memestock mania goes public

Today’s the day you can finally own stock in Reddit, the only social media platform where you can both stage a Wall Street coup and join a community for people who love stapling bread to trees.
The 19-year-old company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange as RDDT as of today, is selling 22 million shares priced at $34 each, valuing Reddit at $6.4 billion.
But that’s pretty much the only conventional thing about this IPO, which is being bet against by some of the very people who make the site what it is, prompting Reddit to warn of potential volatility.
Here’s what’s going on:

  • In a nod to the platform’s reliance on user-generated content, Reddit set aside 1.76 million shares for certain US-based highly active users and volunteer community moderators.
  • Many Redditors have not only passed on the IPO—they’re getting ready to dance on its grave. The 15-million-member r/wallstreetbets subreddit, which briefly turned GameStop to gold in 2021, is filled with talk of shorting RDDT and watching it “absolutely plummet.”
  • Any Redditors who did buy before the bell won’t have to wait the typically mandatory six months before selling, so they could cash in on initial surges.

Growing pains
Last year Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said it was time to “behave like an adult company.” But the untameable beast that is the Reddit community hasn’t always been on board with Huffman’s efforts to make the site profitable…like when thousands of moderators protest-shuttered their communities after Huffman announced that third-party developers would have to pay for site access.
Now that it has a fiduciary duty to make its shareholders richer…Reddit has to figure out how to turn a profit without enraging users. But in a move that will probably anger many of them anyway, Reddit is looking to diversify its main revenue stream (ads) by letting companies train their AI models on user-generated content. It just signed a $60 million/year data licensing contract with Google, but the FTC is probing the deal.—ML

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily


10. You Can’t Succeed In Life Without This Skill

The Daily Stoic

Preparation is important.
Planning is important.
Reflection is important.
I mean, I wrote a whole book called, Stillness is the Key, because it’s true. And I was just saying earlier this month that I needed to slow down and take better care of myself because I was pushing too hard. And I just read and loved Cal Newport’s new book Slow Productivity (we had a great conversation on The Daily Stoic podcast, listen here).
At the same time, I also just hung up two signs at The Daily Stoic offices and in the backstock of The Painted Porch that say “A Sense of Urgency.” It’s something I cribbed from the kitchens of Thomas Keller, the creator of Per Se.
He wanted his staff to understand that they weren’t waiting on customers…the customers were quite literally waiting for them. Sure, making great food takes time and it can’t be rushed…but it also can’t be slow-walked.
I’m a ‘sense of urgency’ guy. I always have been.
As I was working on a draft of this article, one of my former employees sent me a short piece about the concept of “clock speed,” which in the world of computing refers to how quickly something can execute instructions. “Something you are very good at,” this former employee (and now friend) wrote. “You keep the tempo/momentum very high and if there is ever a bottleneck somewhere (decision or input), you process that as soon as physically possible. You return the ball very quickly.”
It’s funny that he said “return the ball” because that’s something I used to say a lot. I’d say look, we don’t control how long other people take to do things, but we do control how long we take. We want to hit the ball back into their court—I’d rather be waiting for them than them be waiting for us.
I started using a different metaphor more recently. When someone tells me that it’s going to take six weeks for our bindery to make another run of the leatherbound Daily Stoic, I want to “start the clock” as soon as possible. Meaning, I’m not pleased if I hear it took 2 weeks to make the decision about how many to order, or that somebody was slow in processing an invoice. I don’t control how long it takes to make stuff, but I do control when the clock starts on it.
The project is going to take six months? Start the clock. You’re going to need a reply from someone else? Start the clock (by sending the email). It will likely take a while for the bid to come back? Start the clock (by requesting it). It’s going to take 40 years for your retirement accounts to compound with enough interest to retire? Start the clock (by making the deposits). It’s going to take 10,000 hours to master something? Start the clock (by doing the work and the study).
It struck me that this has become a kind of dividing line between success and failure within my team. Those who haven’t worked out haven’t been able to start the clock or return the ball very quickly. It’s not just my team—it’s a source of frustration that fills the letters and dispatches of just about every great general, admiral, and leader throughout history.
In the American Civil War, General George McClellan, for instance, seemed utterly incapable of getting to the fight quickly, to the complete exasperation of everyone who worked with him. There’s even a story about Lincoln coming to meet with McClellan for a meeting but McClellan blew him off because he wanted to go to bed (he thought it could wait until the next day). Only after repeated prods from Lincoln—by “sharp sticks,” one of his secretaries said—did McClellan finally begin to move against Lee in 1862, taking nine days to cross the Potomac. “He’s got the slows,” Lincoln said in frustration. Joking to his wife after visiting the general in the field, Lincoln poked fun at his parked commander. “We are about to be photographed [if] we can sit still long enough,” he said. “I feel General M. should have no problem.”
McClellan was a brilliant soldier. But groaning under the weight of his baggage train, his conservatism, his entitlements, his paranoia, and his precaution, he was constitutionally unable to do things quickly, to act urgently, to care about the people waiting on him. He seemed to not understand how much the country was waiting on him, how much it was depending on him sending the message that the North was in the war to win it. Deep down, maybe he didn’t actually want to win the war–at least not early–hoping that a negotiated end might preserve slavery.
Lincoln’s big mistake, honestly, was not firing him sooner. You could say Lincoln had the slows himself there–or was in denial–about what needed to be done. Replacing McClellan was not easy and he had to cycle through a number of replacements, but if Lincoln had started the clock sooner, who knows how much sooner the war would have ended.
Not that I’m not saying you need to rush everything, I’m really not.
There’s another Civil War general I like, General George Thomas. Thomas was hardly known for his speed. His nickname, in fact, was “Old Slow Trot,” which he had earned for the discipline he enforced as a cavalry commander. But it really wasn’t that he was slow; he was deliberate. After all, a trot is not a walk.
Some people thought he was too slow and maybe sometimes he was. Thomas found himself at odds with Grant for not moving fast enough against General Hood’s army at Nashville, taking such an exasperatingly long time to get moving on Grant’s order to “attack at once” that Grant moved to personally relieve him.
Grant thought that Thomas wasn’t hurrying, that he was dragging his feet. In fact, he was fully committed–unlike McClellan–to attacking, he just wanted to ensure he succeeded when he did so. Having prepared properly, supplied adequately, and trained effectively, he waited for the right moment and then attacked with all deliberate speed. Thomas annihilated his enemy in the Battle of Nashville in December 1864, one of the great victories of the war. (His other nickname was the “Rock of Chickamauga,” for standing fast against a massive enemy attack that would have easily broken a fair-weather general like George McClellan.)
There is an old Latin expression that I think captures the balance here nicely: Festina lente. Make haste slowly. A sense of urgency…with a purpose. Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control. It is about getting things done, properly and consistently.
Seneca once said that the thing all fools have in common is that they’re always getting ready to start. But the thing about clocks is that they are running even when we aren’t. If someone says it’s going to take six weeks to manufacture something, that’s the minimum. It will take longer if you delay getting started, also if you’re slow to respond to emails, or if you don’t start working on your plans to receive that shipment when it’s done. If you don’t have a sense of urgency about what you do, you’ll miss opportunities for efficiency and for effectiveness.
You aren’t someone who will work well on my team, or really, any great team.
So it’s worth asking:
Are you someone who reliably returns the ball? Are you someone whom colleagues and clients can count on to be there when they need you? Or will they have to prod? Will they have to beg? Will they have to repeat, again and again, the urgency of the situation?
Are you always getting ready to start or are you in the habit of starting the clock?
Do you have “the slows” or do you have a sense of urgency?
Where are you slowing things down, where could your clock speed be better?
Your success hinges on your answer. On your ability to effectively manage time. On your capacity to initiate projects, address tasks, expedite processes.
We don’t control the clock, but we control when it begins ticking on our projects and pursuits. Every moment of hesitation delays the outcome and diminishes the potential for success.
Don’t be a fool. Don’t be the person always getting ready to start. Instead, always be starting the clock.

https://ryanholiday.net/you-cant-succeed-in-life-without-this-skill/