GoBankingRates examined communities with 5,000 households or more, isolating those with the highest average household income according to the 2022 American Community Survey. The average home value for each city was sourced from Zillow.
All data was collected and is current as of June 18, 2024.
Scarsdale, NY: Leading the List
The wealthiest suburb in the U.S. is Scarsdale, New York, where the average household income is $568,942 and typical home values exceed $1.4 million. Located 11 miles from Manhattan, Scarsdale has a population of around 20,000 and a significant Japanese community.
Less than 15 minutes by car from Scarsdale is the second suburb on our list, Rye. It boasts an average household income of $405,074, and typical home values can exceed $2 million.
Next on our list is West University Place, Texas. Located within the Greater Houston area, it has a population of around 15,000 and is nicknamed “The Neighborhood City” for serving mainly as a bedroom community for upper-class families.
The fourth suburb on our list is Los Altos, California. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, it has a population of 32,000. Once an agricultural town with summer cottages and apricot orchards, Los Altos is now a residential suburb on the western edge of Silicon Valley, providing a major commuting base for the region.
In terms of coast comparisons, the East Coast has the wealthiest suburbs, with 23 making the top 50, including five from New York and five from New Jersey. The West Coast follows with 19 wealthy suburbs.
Bangladesh’s long-serving Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, resigned and fled the country on Monday, after protesters defied a military curfew and stormed her official residence.
Hasina, who had been in power for 15 years, fled the capital Dhaka along with her sister by a helicopter to India, the daily newspaper Prothom Alo reported, after weeks of violent crack downs on protesters left nearly 300 people dead.
Reuters reported that the two had left to seek “safe shelter” away from Hasina’s official residence.
There was no immediate public statement from Hasina’s office, but army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman said in a televised address that the prime minister had resigned and the army was in talks with the president to form an interim government.
Her resignation came a day after at least 95 people were killed and hundreds more wounded after a violent crackdown on protesters.
Nationwide protests began a month ago, after a Bangladesh High Court verdict that was set to reintroduce a quota system in the country, reserving 30 percent of government jobs for the descendants of veterans who fought in the country’s independence war in 1971.
#Bangladesh: Full video of protestors storming PM’s palace in Dhaka. Protestors can be seen inside the office of Sheikh Hasina.pic.twitter.com/I0F0vPJYpY
Mass protests against the quota system, led by students who believed the move to be anti-meritocratic, were violently cracked down on by authorities for several weeks. More than 200 protesters were killed last month.
The deaths triggered further protests demanding accountability and the removal of Hasina, who has led the country since 2009. She had a previous stint as premier, between 1996 and 2001.
Hasina’s party Awami League, which was born out of Bangladesh’s independence movement, has strengthened its grip on power over the past decade and a half. The party won four successive general elections, the most recent of which, in January, was boycotted by the opposition and had a markedly low turnout.
The 76-year-old’s rule was marred by mass arrests of political opponents, the silencing of dissenting voices and accusations of human rights abuses.
— Dr Shajul Islam | Humanitarian Aid Worker (@DrShajulIslam) August 5, 2024
Hasina is the daughter of Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh’s independence movement in the 1970s and ‘father of the nation’.
Video footage on Monday showed protesters in Dhaka climbing on top of a large statue of the founding father and chizelling away at the head with an axe.
“Chip Wars” Will Soon Be “Data Center Wars”, As Our “Next AI Trade” Develops
As we have alluded to numerous times when talking about the next “AI” trade, data centers will be the “factories of the future” when it comes to the age of AI.
That’s the contention of Chris Miller, the author of Chip War, who penned a recent opinion column for Financial Times noting that ‘chip wars’ could very soon become ‘cloud wars’.
He points out that the strategic use of high-powered computing dates back to the Cold War when the US allowed the USSR limited access to supercomputers for weather forecasting, not nuclear simulations.
AI systems today, like supercomputers, have dual civilian and military applications, making control over AI data centers politically and economically significant.
He tells FT readers that many countries are investing heavily in AI data centers. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia are expanding their AI infrastructure, attracting investments from US and Chinese companies. US cloud companies, eyeing lucrative contracts, argue they must compete in these markets to prevent China from dominating.
American diplomats are also focused on data centers to block Chinese tech influence, , according to his FT piece.
As an example, Chris points out that Microsoft’s new data center in Kenya, announced during President Biden’s meeting with President Ruto, will be developed with G42, a UAE-owned company with ties to Chinese firms like Huawei. This partnership raises security concerns in Washington, prompting calls for strict compliance measures.
He concludes:
Chips, clouds and data centres are intrinsically interlinked, so long as high-end, export-controlled chips give cloud computing companies the ability to deploy AI efficiently. The tech competition that started with silicon is now intruding into a new layer of the computing stack.
Recall, for those that missed it, in April of this year we introduced our subscribers to what we thought would be the “Next AI Trade“, which – if it had be summarized in one word – was basically this: the “electrification” of the current AI trade, which includes everything from massive tech giants needed gigawatts of power to operate their operations, to Matrix-like battalions of data centers spread across the country and likewise needing a staggering amount of electricity.
A federal judge ordered a California community college on Aug. 2 not to enforce a poster policy that was used against three students whose anti-communist posters were taken down.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston found that the poster policy of Fresno-based Clovis Community College violated the students’ First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights.
The policy forbade students from displaying material at the taxpayer-funded school containing language or themes deemed “inappropriate” or “offensive.”
The new order also applies to the State Center Community College District (SCCCD), the state district where the college is located. The district is home to four community colleges, including Clovis.
The judge issued a permanent injunction preventing the school and the district “from enforcing, by policy or practice, any unlawful viewpoint—discriminatory, overbroad, or vague regulation, or prior restraint, on the content of the speech of recognized student clubs, including but not limited to bans on ‘inappropriate’ or ‘offensive’ language.”
All the parties in the lawsuit, including Clovis and the district, consented to the order.
The college and the district agreed in a separate settlement to cover $250,000 of the students’ legal expenses and pay the three students each $20,000 in damages. The settlement also requires a $20,000 payment to their group, the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).
In addition, the settlement requires the district to conduct annual First Amendment training sessions for all administrators going forward.
The new order came after the judge issued a preliminary injunction against the school in October 2022 blocking the poster policy.
“The mere threat of enforcement of an unconstitutional restriction on speech may create a chilling effect sufficient to show irreparable harm,” Thurston wrote at the time.
The policy “undermines the school’s own interest in fostering a diversity of viewpoints on campus, thus frustrating, rather than promoting, the College’s basic educational mission.”
The case goes back to November 2021, when the students wanted to criticize authoritarianism.
Alejandro Flores, Daniel Flores, and Juliette Colunga said they secured permission from campus administrators to hang three posters on bulletin boards inside the academic buildings at Clovis, as required by the college’s policy at the time.
The posters promoted freedom and listed the death tolls of communist regimes, associating communism with the “blind arrogance of the left.”
Juliette Colunga, a member of Young Americans for Freedom, at Clovis Community College in California, in a file photo. (Courtesy of Alvarez Photography Studio)
But the school later banned the public display of the posters and withheld permission for the club members to display pro-life posters, the students said.
The students sued and in October 2022 were granted the order temporarily blocking the poster policy. The other side appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s order in August 2023, finding the policy was unconstitutional because it gave administrators unlimited discretion to suppress speech that they didn’t approve.
The Ninth Circuit upheld Thurston’s finding that the policy was too broad and vague to survive constitutional scrutiny. The circuit court also said it rejected an argument by Clovis that because the college later “rescinded the original Flyer Policy,” the court was deprived of the legal authority to hear the case.
“We won. We showed the school they were wrong,” YAF-Clovis founder Alejandro Flores said in a statement provided by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which represented the students in the lawsuit.
“If you think your speech is being stifled, don’t stay quiet, because when you stay quiet, nothing changes.”
FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner told The Epoch Times the judge’s new ruling was an “enormous victory for over 50,000 community college students in California and for the First Amendment.”
“You can’t take down posters because they’re offensive,” he said.
Jill Wagner, spokesperson for the district, and Stephanie Babb, spokesperson for the college, confirmed that administrators had made changes to their poster policies following the case.
“The court determined that a few words in the prior Clovis Community College flyer posting procedure needed to be changed. In response, SCCCD updated its policy to apply to all campuses,” they told The Epoch Times by email.
“A settlement was reached to avoid the cost, uncertainty, and distractions that come with any litigation,” they said.
“SCCCD is committed to upholding the values of the First Amendment and we look forward to ensuring that all members of our community recognize the virtues and benefits of free speech.”
Plot Twist: RFK Jr Says He Put A Dead Bear In Central Park, Staged Accident Scene
With wild plot twists and high intrigue, the 2024 election has been playing out like a TV miniseries. Straining to keep the ratings high, Sunday’s episode just served up a bizarre admission from secondary character Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. You’ve heard of “jumping the shark”? Call this “jumping the bear.”
Apparently racing to beat an upcoming report from The New Yorker, Kennedy has confessed that he dumped a dead bear in Central Park in 2014, and staged the scene to make it look like the cub had been killed in a collision with a bicycle. In a video he posted to social media, Kennedy is shown kicking back in a kitchen, sharing the colorful anecdote with actress Rosanne Barr.
Kennedy said he was driving up to the Hudson Valley for a falconing hunt when a van in front of him struck and killed the bear cub. “I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. It was very good condition and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator,” he said, noting that New York state allows people to get a “bear tag for a roadkill bear.”
However, he and his hunting party had such a productive and enjoyable hunt that they ended up staying late. That precluded a trip back to his home in Westchester, because he had a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in New York in New York City. The dinner went long too, and he had a flight to catch, again barring a trip to his refrigerator.
Kristi Noem: No one will top my bizarre animal killing stories.
Not wanting to leave the bear to rot in his car, the then-60-year-old Kennedy opted to turn his conundrum into a sophomoric prank that would capitalize on a controversy that was ongoing in New York City at the time, as multiple people had been killed and badly injured using recently-installed bike lanes. Conveniently, Kennedy had an old bicycle in his car that someone had given him to dispose of.
“I wasn’t drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea,” said Kennedy. “I said, ‘Let’s go put this bear in Central Park and we’ll make it look like he got hit by a bike.” The independent candidatesaid he and his unnamed companions thought it would be “amusing for whoever found it.”
Kennedy then related his shock and anxiety when he woke the next morning to see his stunt had not only caused a huge media sensation, but intense police scrutiny:
The next day, it was on every television station. It was the front page of every paper, and I turned on the TV and there was a mile of yellow tape and there were 20 cop cars. There were helicopters flying over it. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’
There were some people on TV in Tyvek suits with gloves on, lifting up the bike, and they’re saying they’re going to take this up to Albany to get it fingerprinted. I was worried because my prints were all over that bike.”
Kennedy was recently contacted by The New Yorker’s fact-checkers to confirm the tale was true. “You know, it’s going to be a bad story,” said Kennedy, with Barr and someone else in the room erupting in laughter as the video ends.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 4, 2024
In an odd coincidence, some of the New York Times’ 2014 reporting on the discovery of the 44-pound, approximately 6-month-old bear was handled by Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of RFK Jr’s first cousin, Caroline Kennedy. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation later concluded the bear was killed by a collision with a motor vehicle.
According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Kennedy is the top choice of 8% of voters. Last week, his campaign said that, in working to secure ballot access, it had crossed over one million signatures collected, saying that was more than any presidential candidate in American history.” The campaign says it has now hit the signature requirement in 42 states representing 480 electoral votes.
Meanwhile, watch for Democratic talking heads to decry the bear story as an indicator of Kennedy’s un-fitness for high office, while most normal people will find it just plain old funny.
Trump just absolutely champing at the bit trying to get the news cycle back on him and then RFK jr. pops out of a cake screaming, “A DECADE AGO I STAGED THE MURDER OF A BEAR CUB IN CENTRAL PARK!!!”
Kamala Harris is being touted as the solution to all of America’s problems. Since she didn’t do much as vice-president, and since she didn’t really accomplish much while she was in the U.S. Senate, many Americans feel like they don’t really know her too well. So a lot of them are buying into the carefully crafted image that is now being projected by the Democratic Party. But is that image accurate? Harris spent many years ascending through the ranks of the Democratic Party in California, and of course the Democratic Party has been systematically transforming that state into a hellhole.
There is a reason why millions of people have been moving out of California in recent years. But Harris isn’t just from California.
In January 2019, Kamala Harris launched her 2020 presidential campaign in Oakland. On Friday, Kamala Harris secured enough votes to become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, hours after her supporters rallied in her hometown of Oakland.
As some put it, “Oakland is all in for Kamala.”
The last time Oakland had a Republican mayor was in 1977.
This is a city that is completely and utterly dominated by the Democrats.
Under their rule, it has become a cesspool of drugs, homelessness, violence and theft. Here is just one example of how incredibly lawless Oakland has become…
In early July, a mob of 80 to 100 looters barged into an Oakland gas station and convenience store and stripped the business bare.
According to the New York Post, the mob originated nearby at a so-called sideshow, which is essentially lawless street racing that’s become common in Oakland.
It was bad enough that the store was hit by looters, but what made it worse is that the police took nine hours to respond, according to the owner.
It took nine hours for the police to show up.
Nine hours.
A few years ago, Kamala Harris was one of the politicians that was publicly calling for police budgets to be reduced.
When you do that, this is what happens.
At this point, Oakland is so lawless that it even has a “major problem” with pirates…
Oh, and pirates—yes, pirates—are a major problem in the waters around Oakland. The pirates reportedly come from the city’s myriad homeless encampments. Police have made a few arrests, but the problem now seems endemic in Oakland’s harbors.
California liberalism has transformed Oakland into one of the worst cities in North America.
And if she is given the opportunity, Kamala Harris will impose California liberalism on the whole nation.
Other cities that have been ruled by Democrats for decades are experiencing similar results.
Just look at what is happening to Seattle. One man recently ventured into downtown Seattle in the middle of the night, and the footage that he captured looks like something out of a horror show.
At one point in my life, I spent some time in the Seattle area.
I can hardly believe what has happened to that once great city.
Of course the entire country is going downhill really fast. According to a new report that was just released, shoplifting in the United States increased by 24 percent during the first half of this year…
Shoplifting increased by 24 percent in the first half of 2024, according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s mid-year report, even as other crime levels decreased.
In many cases, shoplifting is seen as a “crime of necessity” for low-income Americans. As inflation continues to impact both businesses and families, shoplifting rates have surged even higher.
“Shoplifting as such a widespread crime during a time of high inflation is actually quite common when you look at similar times from other countries in the past,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek. “The one-two punch that consumers face is not just higher prices, but also a drawback of additional financial resources they would normally qualify for because of their current employment and income outlook.”
Shoplifting was already at record levels coming into this year.
And now it has jumped another 24 percent?
That is insane.
In some of our major cities, shoplifting is wildly out of control. Recently, one reporter spoke to a woman that works at a CVS location in Washington D.C. where there is constant theft…
The Center Square spoke with a 38-year-old woman who goes by “Jones” who works at a CVS within eyeshot of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
Jones told The Center Square that shoplifters take from her store daily.
When Jones does see customers steal something, she doesn’t stop them.
“We don’t get paid for that,” she said.
This is happening right in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol building.
When something is stolen, this woman says that employees are not even supposed to contact the police. Instead, they are just supposed to write down what was stolen on a clipboard…
She said procedure is not to notify police but to write a description of the thief and what was stolen down on a form on a clipboard. Jones’ clipboard has seemingly a hundred pages stacked, at least one for each day, many of them filled with reported incidents.
By 11:15 am Thursday morning when Jones spoke with The Center Square, the store had already been stolen from four times that day, at least as far as she knew.
This is what anarchy looks like.
And the chaos in our major cities is constantly getting worse, because the Biden administration refuses to secure the border.
Venezuela’s most violent gang, which has already sparked chaos across the US, has moved its headquarters to the outskirts of a major American city, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
Dubbed the ‘epitome of evil’, the notorious criminal organization Tren de Aragua, or TdA as it is known by federal agents, previously operated out of an infamous South American prison so completely under gang leaders’ control that it had its own zoo, swimming pool and nightclub.
But after kingpin Hector Guerrero Flores escaped last year, the mafia moved its command center to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico on the US border – directly across from El Paso, Texas, local officials told DailyMail.com.
Since the border is wide open, this new location gives this gang the perfect staging ground for conducting operations inside the United States.
In fact, this gang has already become extremely active in major cities far from the border such as Denver and New York…
A memo by the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that the TDA members in Denver have been given a ‘green light’ to shoot or attack police officers, reported Fox News.
The gang is also thought to have joined forces with other criminal networks in New York, unleashing violent schemes including brazen moped phone thefts.
According to NBC News, Joe Biden “tapped Kamala Harris to tackle the daunting issue of immigration in March 2021”.
Two Chinese Nationals In U.S. Illegally Stopped With $250,000 In Gold Bars On Them In Texas
Just a normal everyday traffic stop: pulling over a couple of Chinese nationals, driving through Texas, with $250,000 worth of gold bars on their person.
Sgt. Charlie Hughes of the Wills Point Police Department was monitoring traffic on I-20 near the 533-mile marker when he saw a White Chevy Malibu with Michigan plates committing a traffic violation.
He then stopped the vehicle and identified the driver as 25-year-old Weijian Chen.
KETK writes that due to a language barrier, Hughes asked Chen to use a translator app in his patrol vehicle to communicate.
The officer said that during the interview he “observed multiple factors that lead [him] to believe there was criminal activity afoot.”
The driver said that he was heading to Dallas and had also been in Florida to “play”.
The vehicle was rented under the name of the passenger, 46-year-old Wenqiang Lin, who consented to a search but appeared uncertain. A K9 unit alerted to the front passenger door.
Inside, officials found a Spirit Airlines boarding pass indicating that Weijian Chen had flown from Los Angeles to Atlanta on July 30-31 without any bags. The rental agreement showed the car was rented in College Park, Georgia, on July 31 and was due in Los Angeles by August 3, the report continued.
A bag behind the driver’s seat contained gold bullion bars worth an estimated $200,000 to $250,000, including:
Seven 1-ounce 999.9 gold bars
Three 5-gram 999.9 gold bars
One 1-gram 999.9 gold bar marked with 20 squares
Eight 10-ounce 999.9 gold bars
After arresting Chen and Lin, Sgt. Hughes contacted U.S. Homeland Security, which revealed both men had entered the country illegally. Lin entered on September 15, 2023, and was awaiting immigration processing in Los Angeles. Chen entered on December 17, 2023, and is also pending immigration judicial action.
“Based on my training, I know that it is very unlikely that Lin or Chen could have transported the gold bullion through airport Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint with[out] filing a United States Currency Transaction Report,” the officer said.
During an interview at the Van Zandt County Jail, Chen allegedly stated that the gold bars had been given to him by someone to transport to Dallas however he declined to give any further information.
Both suspects have been charged with money laundering and are being held on $100,000 bond.
A steady diet of adversity prepares one for both the low-level adversities of daily life but also for the metaphorical droughts and floods that push us to our limits of endurance and adaptability.
We all know the downside of adversity: it’s tiresome, and if it pushes us up against our limits long enough, it can break us.
If my life is any indication, some of our adversity is outside our choosing and control, while other instances of adversity result from our own decisions and/or traits. We may take risks with the goal of advancing, and end up with adversity. We may choose a difficult path and find it far more arduous than we could possibly have imagined. Or we may have experienced success from the start, and be unprepared for the adversity that inevitably follows easy success.
Longtime correspondent Matthew W. recently observed that humans share a core trait with other forms of life:
“Just like animals and crops, if you give too much up front, they grow weak, and being unable to stand any hardship, eventually succumb to simple problems that any normal living thing could tolerate. I see the same application in work. The one who must struggle ceaselessly during training flourishes when placed into a space that requires typical prowess, whereas those who are constantly led by the hand, require massive support systems to do even simple tasks, until their ineptitude ultimately bankrupts the company, leading to their loss of work.”
This is the upside of adversity: a steady diet of adversity prepares one for both the low-level adversities of daily life (Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, etc.) but also for the metaphorical droughts and floods that push us to our limits of endurance and adaptability.
As the famed stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius observed, “You have power over your mind–not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”In other words, we don’t control everything going on around us, we only control our response to the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Where we find strength to endure adversity depends on our experience and personality. In the modern era, the Existentialists perceived the world as devoid of absolutes, and so we make our lives by our actions. Ralph Waldo Emerson said as much: “Do the thing and you shall have the power.”
My summary is: never mind what you think or feel, just do the work: persevere above all else. Marcus said much the same: “Begin–to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.”
It is noteworthy that Marcus spent the entire first chapter of his Meditations expressing gratitude to all those who taught him and aided his advance in skills and wisdom. Gratitude for what we have and have learned helps us orient ourselves to the task at hand, enduring adversity and emerging stronger as a result. Here is Marcus: “Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”
There is also the strength found in faith, something philosopher Soren Kierkegaard addressed in the 19th century. To have faith that the adversity we must endure is as it should be, despite the difficulties and suffering: “And when one knows the frightful truth that there is no evasion or excuse, then one does what one shall.” (page 15, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air)
For Kierkegaard, faith is not only seeking God’s aid, it is a life-changing experience: “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
Marcus expressed similar notions of fate and faith:
“Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.”
“Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‘This is a misfortune’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.'”
“Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.”
The Taoists viewed the world as constant change, and our adversities arise from seeking the impossible: to lock in a situation that suits us. As Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing), “Reversal is the movement of Tao.” For the Taoists, the highest skills flow from constant practice until the skills summon themselves.
Marcus possessed the same wisdom:
“Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.”
And so how to we proceed in the face of adversity? By moving forward: As Lao Tzu wrote: “The journey of a thousand li begins with a single step.”
Here is Marcus: “Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.”
For Kierkegaard, the ultimate purpose of life is to acquire oneself, to become true to oneself: “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”
“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly.”
If we can remain true to ourselves, then we’ll discover what Marcus knew: “Where a man can live, he can also live well.”
It is wise to focus on what we can do in the present moment, but also wise to explore our past for insights and strengths we can apply to the present:
Marcus: “Confine yourself to the present.”
Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Monday Massacre Brought To You By Kazuo’s Carry-Chaos, Kamalanomics, & Jump’s Crypto Dump
Well it started with a Japanic… but really Asian markets were just playing catch down to Friday’s moves. Yen strength (carry trade unwind accelerates post-BoJ) weighed on stocks and TOPIC had its worst day since the 1987 collapse…
Source: Bloomberg
How much more pain will Kazuo Ueda unleash on the Japanese public before he pivots dovish once again
“You can’t unwind the biggest carry trade the world has ever seen without breaking a few heads. That is the impression markets give us this morning,” Kit Juckes, chief foreign exchange strategist at Societe Generale, said in a research note published Monday.
In the US, the narrative transition from ‘soft landing’ to ‘hard landing’ stoked the flames of the sell-off and some pointed to Kamala Harris overtaking Trump in the prediction markets as exacerbating equity weakness.
Source: Bloomberg
At their worst, Small Caps and Nasdaq were down 6% today, before dip-buyers stepped in and lipstick’d this pig of a day. By the close, all the majors were down around 3-3.5% on the day…
Goldman Sachs trading desk noted tht overall activity levels are surging up +63% vs. the trailing 2 weeks in line with market volumes up +99% vs the 10dma. Our floor tilts +6% better to buy, driven by HFs while LOs just flipped from net seller to net buyer.
HFs are +11% better to buy and shockingly are better to buy in every sector ex-REITs. Demand heaviest in Tech, Cons Disc, Comm Svcs & Fins which are all +$100mm net better to buy
LOs are now flat on the day after starting out -10% better for sale. A bit more dispersion in their sector skews, buying Comm Svcs, Cons Disc, HCare & Fins while selling Tech, Staples, Mats & Macro Products
Nasdaq broke below its 200DMA but found a supportive bid there…
“Most Shorted” stocks were slammed again at the open
Source: Bloomberg
Mag7 stocks are now down a stunning $3 trillion from their record highs…
Source: Bloomberg
NVDA is now down 35% from its record highs…
Source: Bloomberg
The ‘Ai trade’ is rapidly unwinding, breaking below its 200DMA…
Source: Bloomberg
VIX surged to 65 intraday – its highest since COVID lockdown chaos – before vol-sellers stepped in (but it ended up around 35 still!)…
Source: Bloomberg
VVIX exploded higher – near all-time record highs…
Source: Bloomberg
The Treasury market was chaotic today (but you’d barely notice if you were checking close to close). Yields collapsed by almost 20bps intraday… twice… before squeezing back higher and ending pratically unchanged. The long-end ended up outperforming on the day (30Y -4bps, 2Y +1bps)…
Source: Bloomberg
The yield curve (2s10s) briefly dis-inverted today for the first time since June 2022…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar dropped again, testing the mid-May lows…
Source: Bloomberg
Crude oil plunged back to test its lows since February today ($71 handle for WTI)…
Source: Bloomberg
Gold was monkeyhammered lower today too, breaking below $2400 before finding support…
Source: Bloomberg
Crypto markets were clubbed like a baby seal overnight amid reports that Jump Trading was liquidating its holdings. Bitcoin crashed below $50,000 for the first time since February (basically erasing all the post-ETF gains), then bounced notably off those lows…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, the market appears to be testing The Fed – demanding almost 140bps of cuts in 2024 at the peak today (as 2025 cuts are brought forward)…
Source: Bloomberg
Now, don’t forget that this is the third time the market has gone to the limit on Fed rate cuts in the last year. Will Powell fold and unleash the Put?
CrowdStrike Lawyer Blasts Delta For “Misleading Narrative” Surrounding Global IT Outage
CrowdStrike lawyer Michael Carlinsky, who is a co-managing partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, penned a letter on Sunday to Delta Air Lines, making it very clear that the carrier has pushed a “misleading narrative that CrowdStrike is responsible for Delta’s IT decisions and response to the outage” that lasted several days.
“Should Delta pursue this path [referring to a lawsuit], Delta will have to explain to the public, its shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike took responsibility for its actions—swiftly, transparently, and constructively—while Delta did not,” Carlinsky wrote in the letter addressed to Delta’s legal team, which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
The letter comes as there has been a growing public conflict between CrowdStrike and the airline over last month’s global IT outage.
Last week, Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the mass flight disruptions last month triggered by a faulty CrowdStrike update cost the company around $500 million, including customer compensation.
Delta lawyered up last week, with Bastian indicating that the airline had “no choice” but to seek damages from CrowdStrike.
Carlinsky reiterated CrowdStrike’s apology in the letter, adding the cybersecurity firm is “highly disappointed by Delta’s suggestion that CrowdStrike acted inappropriately and strongly rejects any allegation that it was grossly negligent or committed misconduct.”
While most airlines and businesses that were affected by CrowdStrike’s faulty update, which triggered the ‘blue screen of death’ on millions of computers, what remains a mystery is why Delta continued to struggle for at least a week to reboot its backend system. In all, the airline canceled more than 5,000 domestic flights.
Joseph Gallo, senior vice president at Jefferies, told clients last week, “We don’t believe CRWD will be held liable” in court by Delta.
“We expect other companies impacted by the IT outage could potentially follow suit (helps with an image to customers of impacted companies), creating further headline risk in the near term,” Gallo said.
Gallo continued, “We don’t expect CRWD to have to reimburse customers for the outage, but the litigation cost & distraction (CEO appearing before Congress) will certainly weigh.”
In the markets, CrowdStrike shares have been halved since peaking around $400 in early June.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer tried to catch the falling knife around the $260 level one week ago.
Gallo is likely correct. In the short term, a wave of lawsuits and hearings on Capitol Hill could weigh on shares.
