Understand - these are corporate CIOs - Chief Information Officers - speaking these truths. "Seventy-five percent of summit attendees polled said they believe AI is currently driving a small amount of value for their investments, but not enough" "companies are in the mode of 'having hammers looking for nails" "They’re so scared to be left out of a revolution in progress that they buy an AI thing of some kind, and they try to figure out how to drive value with it,” But the hyperscalers (say they) will spend $320B this year alone employing the "build-it-and-they-will-come" (unproven) strategy. What could go wrong?

There are a lot of theories as to why gold keeps so relentlessly rising and here's another possible factor from Kitco (today): "Chinese banks are running out of gold." "According to local news agency Yicai, the app of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China shows 5, 20, 50, 100, and 200-gram gold bars are out of stock, with only the 10-gram option showing limited availability. Agricultural Bank of China’s app also shows the lender is sold out of 10 and 20-gram gold bars, while the 100 and 200-gram bars are running low. Meanwhile, the China Construction Bank app shows that only the 50 and 100-gram investment gold bars are available, while the apps of Postal Savings Bank of China and Bank of China show all gold bars are in preorder status, meaning none are currently available."

@nrg91720 Revenues. guidance, PV

@doug_dag Wouldn't guarantee anything (it is Newmont after all) but Barrick's 12.4% sequential increase in gold sold at Nevada Gold Mines (NGM - a joint venture with Barrick & NEM) is very helpful.

@HVACRamjet Yippee! But maybe I should send the Copilot info to the IRS?

@BallsoftheDeer Yes, it's terrible news. Please don't tell my wife that I've passed away (or that I'm that old).

If the tariff wars continue to escalate with "reciprocal" punitive actions, the (US- based) Mag 7 will not go unscathed. Even before, many of them had targets on their backs and are currently being investigated for monopolistic practices by many countries around the world. Apple's 30% take from software developers, which is egregious- and makes up a major % of their Service revenues - will be even more at risk than it already is.

Commentary I read today on Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast: "robust consumer spending in the U.S. has kept up in past years even during periods of elevated inflation, helping the U.S. achieve a soft landing." I don't believe one can claim the U.S. economy has achieved a (rarely seen) "soft landing" until the historic stock market bubble has unwound. Spending amongst those benefitting from the asset inflation has kept higher-end U.S. consumer spending (and the economy afloat). Other parts of the economy (housing, industrial) are in the midst of a much harder landing.

Something to think about for those eager to pay historically high multiples to buy Apple's stock - two headlines in DigiTimes today: 1) "iPhone slump reverberates through Taiwan's chip supply chain" 2) "Declining consumer power and intensifying competition challenge iPhone sales in China" "The sales performance of the new iPhone series in the Greater China region has not shown improvement from 2024, seemingly confirming many market forecasts that suggest iPhone growth has hit a bottleneck in this region" Report in the Information today about Apple working with Alibaba won't change these negative trends significantly.

CNBC “Pro” headline 2/10/25: "Wall Street is souring on ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks after tough earnings season" More of the above trend will eventually bring Western investors back to the gold & silver miners - which continue to lag the soaring gold price

The Tesla car sales (or lack thereof) situation is getting interesting. "Tesla's (TSLA) sales in China fell 11.5% on a year-over-year basis in the month of January, while Chinese competitor BYD sales surged an annualized 47%, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association released on Friday. The data also showed deliveries of Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y vehicles made in China fell 32.6% from December." That's with extended 0% financing plans and price cuts. Meanwhile, over in Europe, Tesla's January car sales in France plummeted 63% year-over-year, in Germany sales plunged 60% and in Norway they were down 38%. Tesla U.K. sales in January fell 8%. Haven't seen U.S. numbers for January yet, but electrek reported this week that Tesla's January sales in California, by far the biggest EV market in the U.S., "dropped by double digits" (percents). With approximately 80% of EV buyers in the U.S. being registered Democrats, the "Elon Effect" may be an issue. I''m guessing Tesla's Canadian sales in January haven't been so hot either. Tesla is one of the Mag 7 stocks and has a tremendous cult following, but if sales keep declining - now at an accelerated pace - and margins contract, the bro's willing to pay 185 times earnings might start to think otherwise. In a declining market liquidity environment in 2025, Optimus hype might no longer be enough to keep this Mag 7's stock's grossly bloated valuation aloft for much longer.

@kidkurz These outflows aren't anything new. It's been going on for several years

Over the past year (since Feb 5, 2024), investors have reduced their holdings (shares outstanding) in the GDX gold miners ETF by 14%. Over that time the GDX has soared by 50%.

Data From the World Gold Council: "In the final quarter of 2024, when Trump won the U.S. election, buying by central banks accelerated by 54% year on year to 333 tons "Central banks, a major source of gold demand, bought more than 1,000 tons of the metal for the third year in a row in 2024" "In 2025, we expect central banks to remain in the driving seat and gold ETF investors to join the fray, especially if we see lower, albeit volatile interest rates," WGC senior markets analyst Louise Street,said

RT @nhryanhickey: Closing comment on NXPI CC, “Thanks for paying attention to today's call. We continue to be in a very cloudy environment…

Tightened U.S. restrictions on NVDA's chips orders to China are one threat, but additionally, major Chinese software customers have already piled up more capacity than they currently need. "While tech giants like ByteDance and Alibaba have constructed large GPU clusters, much of this computing power remains idle"

TrendForce's research conclusions do not bode well for Nvidia. It could be beneficial for Broadcom (ASICs) however: "This (DeepSeek) development is expected to prompt end users to conduct more rigorous evaluations of AI infrastructure investments, focusing on adopting more efficient software computing models to reduce reliance on hardware such as GPUs. CSPs are also likely to expand the adoption of in-house ASIC infrastructure to lower deployment costs. Consequently, actual demand for GPU-based AI chips and semiconductors could see notable changes from 2025 onward."