Welcome to the first edition of What Mattered This Week, a brief look at developments shaping markets that we find interesting.
The latest Google release of Gemini 3.0 this week is very impressive, except if you are being paid to be a radiologist.
The closest gas station to First Foundation headquarters is selling unleaded at $5.47 per gallon – literally highway robbery – but beyond the California reasons for that, the big one is that Russia fuel is barely coming to market any longer. This is likely the #1 reason why there is a rumored 28-point peace plan out there, as Ukrainian drones and Western Sanctions enforcement is decimating the finances of the Russian war machine. Suncor’s stock price this week punched through $45, back at the price it was when the Iranians were in the Suez and oil was $140/barrell.
Waves of mortgage lending could be in the future for banks if rates do in fact fall or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reassert itself. Check out this detail by credit score. A steeper yield curve should not hurt those banks either!
The S&P 500 is up less than 1% year-to-date in € terms, as the Dollar has sharply weakened this year. Of course, we know the US market is trading at the upper end of its historic valuation multiples, Monish Pabrai this week was pointing at its 30x trailing earnings being 10% higher than 2000. Margins are at record highs and Horizon Kinetics is out there questioning the sustainability if China continues to make inroads in advanced tech. Chris Bloomstran was calling out yesterday’s market intraday reversal as a shadow of October 9, 2008, the Nasdaq traded +2.71% above the prior close, then ended the day down 5.47%. As the equal weight S&P continues to get pummeled, we see international markets and real estate playing an important role in portfolio diversification.