This Week on Trends with Friends (May 19th, 2024)

Welcome Friends, 

Here’s an assortment of posts shared this week on Trends with Friends. 

This week, Howard Lindzon looks at the Mother of All Short Squeezes — GameStop.

He writes, 

Since I coined our current ‘degenerate economy’ nothing should surprise me about the markets and degeneracy.

But, surprised I am again.

Are you not entertained? The degenerate economy lives on. 

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 and major indices alike surged to all-time highs. JC Parets covered the record close dismissing the idea that 7 stocks are moving the market. 

S&P 500 New All-time Highs

Nasdaq Composite New All-time Highs

NYSE Composite New All-time Highs

Dow Jones Industrial Average New All-time Highs

Are you noticing a trend?

And it’s not just 7 stocks either.

Actually the Russell3000 Index just hit New All-time Highs as well. This index represents approximately 98% of all investable assets in the U.S. Equities market.

Here it is breaking records before your very eyes:

Craig Shapiro shared his chart of the day — April Supercore CPI En Fuego. He writes,

Supercore CPI inflation is core services ex-housing and is often seen as the third pillar of inflation that the Fed is trying to bring back down to target after goods inflation and housing inflation. They seem to be failing in their efforts.

The Fed needs to work harder to destroy demand in order to bring inflation back down to target. Just talking about keeping rates higher for longer is not getting the job done.

Michael Parekh previewed AI’s voice capabilities as the major players — OpenAI, Google, Apple, Meta lean into the audio interface. 

He writes, 

The ultimate potential here goes far beyond asking questions and hearing answers. This ‘multimodal’ ‘Smart Agent and Agentic’ Voice AI transition is likely to change us and our societies, mostly for the better.

This week, Tadas Viskanta curated Podcast Links: Reviewing Products featuring topics on OpenAI, Private Credit, Weight-Loss Drugs, Teen’s Mental Health and more. 

Wednesday, Trends with No Friends featured MakeMyTrip, Core & Main and Agilysys’ all-time highs. Have a look.

And in case you missed it… Howard Lindzon, Phil Pearlman and JC Parets are joined by Jeff Richards to review memestonks and lessons of short squeezes on the latest episode of Trends with Friends. Tune in today.

If you share insights on the market and would like to contribute to Trends with Friends, send us an email.