Public Holidays
In the coming week, there will be no public holidays in America, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Economic Calendar (24Feb2025)
Macro Calendar from investing dot com
Notable Highlights
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The Core PCE price index will be the most watched data point in the coming week. The Federal Reserve uses this as its preferred reference for inflation. This data point is important in making the coming interest rate decision, which can bring volatility to the market.
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China’s Manufacturing PMI will be released next week. China accounts for about 33% of global manufacturing, which can also be considered global consumption.
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Chicago PMI data will be released. The index reading of 39.5, from the previous news reflects a strong contraction in Chicago's manufacturing sector. A figure above 50 represents growth. Can Chicago stop its manufacturing decline?
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CB consumer confidence data will be released in the coming week. This is a good indication of consumer outlook. An amount of more than 100 is bullish for the market. Together with Durable goods orders, this provides a prelude to consumer consumption.
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New Home Sales data will be shared. This reflects the health of residential real estate.
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Initial jobless claims will be announced. The Federal Reserve uses this as one of the key macro data references as it balances inflation and employment in the economy.
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Crude Oil Inventories can be seen as forward indicators of market demand and consumption. If the trend of excess inventories continues, demand erosion can lead to reduced production & weakening consumer spending.
Earnings Calendar (24Feb2025)
I am interested in the earnings of the following businesses: Nvidia, Zoom, Berkshire Hathaway, Salesforce, Lowe’s and Snowflake.
Let us look at Salesforce.
The stock price of Salesforce has grown 6.1% from a year ago.
The Technical Analysis has a “Strong Sell” rating.
Analysts Sentiment has a “Buy” recommendation with a price target of $395.63. This suggests a potential upside of 27.7%.
Observations:
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10-year median margins for Gross Profit is a strong 74.2%.
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10-year median margins for Free Cashflow (FCF) is 20.5%. The 10-year CAGR of FCF is 32.3%. This is a strong performance over 10 years.
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The revenue grew from $5.3B (2015) to $34.8B (2024).
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Operating Profit grew from a loss of $146M (2015) to operating profit $5.9B (2024).
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Operating profit margin started with a loss of -2.7% in 2015 to 17.2% in 2024.
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EPS has grown from -$0.42 (2015) to $4.20 (2024).
The forecast of the EPS and revenue are $2.61 and $10.04B respectively. This is business with improving revenue and profits. This can be considered for shortlisting and more research needs to be done as part of our due diligence.
Market Outlook of S&P500 - 24Feb2025
Observations:
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The MACD indicator is starting a downtrend. A top crossover has been completed.
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Moving Averages (MA). Both the MA50 line and the MA200 line are on an uptrend. The last candle is above both the MA200 line. The last candle is sitting on the MA50 line. This implies a bullish outlook for both the mid- and long-term.
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The 3 Exponential Moving Averages (EMA) lines are showing an uptrend but have started to converge.
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Chaikin’s Monetary flow (CMF) shows an uptrend.
S&P500 has gained 18.21% from a year ago.
From the technical indicators above, Investing dot com recommends a “NEUTRAL” rating. There are 9 indicators that recommend a “Buy” rating and 11 indicators that recommend a “Sell” rating.
From the candlestick patterns above, there seem to be more bearish candles.
With the above information, I lean towards a bearish outlook in the coming days.
News and my thoughts from last week (24Feb2025)
“In a world where Tesla Robotaxi exists, Uber is worthless.” - X user Farzad. This hinges on FSD which is getting better over time. There would be other concerns that need to be addressed including data privacy, data security (so that the robotaxi are difficult to hack), supporting legalities, charging infrastructure and more. Robotaxi would be safer. There can be a new business like new tourism opportunities to be uncovered. This can disrupt industries like train and even air travel.
President Trump has officially halted ALL weapon shipments to Ukraine. Do you think this is the right move? - X user TaraBull
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By 2100, Russia and Ukraine will lose 40M people, accelerating Eastern Europe’s population decline. Meanwhile, tiny Monaco is set to grow the most (+24%), one of just seven European countries projected to see an increase. - Visual Capitalist
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Bybit's CEO says that over $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum and other assets have been "hacked" from the exchange. The funds have begun to move to new addresses where they are being sold. So far, $200M ETH has been sold, per Arkham Intelligence. - X user The Kobeissi Letter
Automaker and supplier executives used quarterly earnings calls and investor events to warn of higher costs, reduced new-vehicle demand, increased production volatility and renewed supply chain chaos - Autonews CN
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has EVICTED CNN from the Pentagon.
Leading DRAM makers — Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix — may cease production of DDR3 and DDR4 memory by the end of the year. The decision is due to low prices caused by dumping (by Chinese makers) and declining demand - Tom’s Hardware
The biggest refiners, Marathon Petroleum, Valero Energy, and Phillips 66, continued to lose profitability due to falling refining margins. - Oil Price
DOGE Finds $4.7 Trillion In Virtually Untraceable Treasury Payments
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Source: CNA
The Singapore government is studying the options for nuclear energy.
"Europe is waking up to the urgency of its need to be in a better position to defend itself — including from the Trump administration," per Bloomberg.
My Investing Muse (24Feb2025)
Layoffs & Closure news
CNN is running nonstop stories about the “stress” and “trauma” of federal employees being laid off… META just laid off 3,600 employees. HSBC fired 70% of their investment bank. Welcome to the real world. - X user Geiger Capital
PENTAGON CUTS 5,400 JOBS AS TRUMP MOVES TO STREAMLINE FEDERAL WORKFORCE The Pentagon says 5,400 civilian employees on probation will be let go starting next week—the first big move in Trump’s plan to shrink the federal workforce. DoD Official, Darin Selnick: "We expect approximately 5,400 probationary workers will be released beginning next week as part of this initial effort, after which we will implement a hiring freeze while we conduct a further analysis of our personnel needs, complying as always with all applicable laws." Source: Reuters
Joann, which sells fabric and craft supplies to millions of Americans is shuttering 500 of its stores across 49 states.
The above are some snippets of news about layoffs, and closures in the past week.
America struggles with debt
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Delinquency updates from New York Fed's 13 Feb 2025 post.
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US households are drowning in MASSIVE debt: US credit card debt surged by $45 BILLION in Q4 2024 to a RECORD of $1.2 trillion. Credit card balances rose by a whopping $430 BILLION in 3 years. The credit card debt would have been higher as rejection rates hit 22%, 12 years high.
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America say they’ve lost $5.188 billion from customers who have been declared unable to pay their bills. The banks outlined the Q4 losses in “net charge-offs” statements, revealing loans that the banks have declared as uncollectible and removed from their books after exhausting efforts to recover the owed amounts. - Daily HODL
The debt of one man is the asset of another - Ray Dalio.
There can be a point where it is (near) impossible to recover from a debt spiral. Let us monitor.
DeepSeek refuses to go away
The DeepSeek team reportedly verified that Huawei Ascend 910C performance reaches 60% of the Nvidia H100 chips. - Huawei Central
China now connects everything – from chatbots and smart vehicles to government departments and schools – to DeepSeek. - Asia Times
China looks to DeepSeek as it directs applications to DeepSeek’s platform. With over 1.3B global users, the size of a growing user base can offer a competitive advantage. I am monitoring this closely as China stand a chance to lead the world in AI like any other country.
My final thoughts
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Top holdings of Warren Buffett ／ Berkshire.
This was published recently and recent data advises that Berkshire is sitting on a cash pool of over $330 billion. Are there no good opportunities available? What are the concerns of Buffett? Is the market overvalued?
These are questions that I keep running into.
This leads me to a (great) quote:
"You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch. But what you probably want is respect and admiration." - The Psychology Of Money
The best return on investment can not be merely money. The learning, connection and gaining of more “free” time are my motivations for investing. It took me years to understand that time is finite. Realizing that time is NOT on my side is sobering and helps me to calibrate my values accordingly. This may not apply to everyone. Apart from money, what else do we need to be “successful”? What is our definition of success?
Let us research before investing. I wish you all a great week ahead.
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