wtf is going on today

Well, this morning we got economic data

that's well quite mixed. This morning

the Atlanta Fed gave us probably the

most bullish piece of information and

that is that the initial estimates for

the third quarter gross domestic product

are skyrocketing

3.5%. Now remember, we had a big

negative in Q1, a slight negative in Q1,

which then we averaged the Q2 out with

to say, oh, growth is only about 1 to 1

and a.5%. It's one of the things that

Powell and folks at the Fed have been

talking about. Oh, you know, growth is

slowing, growth is slowing. Even Waller

yesterday, growth is slowing, growth is

slowing. Well, apparently GDP now model

suggests that this is not true. that the

US in the third quarter is actually

growing to the pace of three and a half

percent up from 2.2% August 26th. Why?

That's because of recent releases on

personal consumption expenditures

growth. Those are those PCE numbers we

got this morning. PCE, by the way, this

really comes as no surprise and we

should, you should know this. We've

talked about it on channel. We've talked

about it in the alpha report. PCE is

generally not a surprise. Why? Because

most PCE in terms of price inflation

comes from CPI and PPI which is data we

got over two and a half weeks ago. So

not a surprise that PCE price indices

match on month over month, match on

year-over-year, match on core, match on

core year-over-year. All four of them

were just a match of expectations. This

is why I say PCE is really a nothing

burger. But what we can see is that

personal income and personal spending

was up higher uh than people have

broadly been looking for uh in markets

though over time. We've seen uh these

expectations come up. So we technically

matched here as well. We just had higher

revisions for the prior reading. So the

Atlanta Fed is saying, "Hey, this is

great. Not only are we doing great on

people spending money, but we're doing

great on private uh domestic investment

growth in America increasing from 2.2 uh

to uh sorry, increasing personal

consumption increasing 2.2%. But

domestic investment growth increasing

4.4%.

Uh which is phenomenal. Uh actually, I'm

sorry, we're going from 4.4 4 to 6.1%

on domestic investment growth. The

personal consumption level is not moving

as much 2.2 to 2.3. But that domestic

investment growth, so people investing

into machinery, capex, AI, business

spending, you name it, really popping it

off. This is something that Waller

talked about yesterday is that will the

uncertainty that businesses are facing

lead to uh people finally saying, "All

right, we can't be uncertain forever.

Let's just pull the trigger and make a

decision here and go spend or do we fall

into a recession?" The hope is that

businesses say, "F it. We've waited long

enough for tariff impacts. Let's go

spend." And this is in the face clearly

that's the choice that businesses are

making right now. This is in the face of

54% of businesses thinking that price

increases are still ahead of us. This is

the uh Chicago PMI read which indicated

54% of businesses think that price

increases are still ahead of us. And

this Chicago report wasn't great. This

was some of our more bearish news this

morning along with consumer sentiment.

Consumer sentiment coming in a little

bit lower because expectations were

falling. Still an expansion at 55.9 but

under that estimate of 57.5 and below

the last read of 572. Inflation

expectations slipping though despite the

fact that you're you're still seeing an

increase of prices broadly. Uh inflation

expectations now over the next year at

4.8% and over the next 5 to 10 years

3.5% per the uh University of Michigan

survey. That said, look at the Chicago

barometer. the Chicago barometer which

they describe themselves and I take some

issue with this. They describe

themselves as a leading indicator. They

collect data from Chicago area

manufacturers and producers. They say

that we have now unwound the rise uh of

the readings that we've seen in July and

we're now below 50 for 21 consecutive

months. Plus, we've seen a sharp decline

in new orders and a fall of employment.

We've also seen now the largest fall in

new orders since September of 23, which

I don't think that was a particularly

useful month. So, I don't know how much

that matters. But employment compressed

to the lowest level since June of 2022

or sorry, 2020 COVID levels here with

production softening to the weakest

since December of 2024. So really what

you're getting here is this sort of

bizarre environment where GDP looks and

this is the Chicago MI but we're going

to write some notes here. You're in this

environment where we'll write this down

here. We'll just make this a nice little

let's go with like yellow so it's nice

and bright. Oh, there we go. Okay, we'll

go yellow here. We'll go uh we'll go red

on this. Okay, it's like a thumbnail.

All right. Uh so what you're seeing is

businesses uh plowing uh into capex

which is helping boost GDP domestically

right this is a huge boost to GDP

problem is uh employment

still showing big red flags and that's

what you're seeing in the Chicago PMI

report that's what you're seeing with

what Waller said yesterday that we

constantly uh we we are seeing

continuous slowing in employment partly

because of AI. If almost like businesses

are saying we don't need to spend on

people, we need to spend more on

machines. Do I get it? I mean, even

House hack, which we just raised in

August, I didn't even realize this

until, you know, just like an hour ago.

We raised over seven figures in August.

Over six figures just in the last 3

days. And we haven't even made like

Houseack video, I feel like, this month.

You know, it's just I think people are

like they see the writing on the wall

that rates are coming down, that real

estate's going to be the next frontier.

Uh they see what we're doing with AI.

They know we've got our beta release

coming up uh for for course members uh

for the house hack AI. Hopefully Q4 is

the target. We're investing in

equipment. You know, we're buying uh RTX

6000s for house hack for house hack just

like Disney is the AI data center uh uh

you know braid uh GPUs. Uh, and so it's

really exciting, but but that's an

example there. Like we're an actual

business throwing more money into capex

than in staff because we don't need the

staff. We can get so much more done in

part, yes, because of AI, but we'd

rather spend more money on chips than on

payrolls. Like, I'd rather buy Nvidia

chips all day long than pay more money

in payroll right now. It like it doesn't

talk back to you. It doesn't call in for

time off. it it doesn't complain or

whine or whatever. That's not to say

people don't matter. I'm just saying I

think broadly that's what a lot of

businesses are doing right now. And so

when we when we try to weave like how do

we consolidate like is this data really

just that noisy? Maybe not. Maybe it's

actually exactly what you would expect

is businesses are investing in in

systems in infrastructure uh and less

into humans. Now, when we actually look

at the Chicago PMIs to see if they are

truly a leading indicator, I personally

find them to be a little bit complicated

in terms of a leading indicator because

look at this. The Chicago Miis plummeted

in March of 2000. I don't, you know, all

the way into 2001, but so stocks were

falling then as well. And then in

September of 2008, Chicago PMI plummets,

but that wasn't a leading indicator.

That was a reaction to, hey, we're in

recession. Leman Brothers collapses.

Boom. It collapses.

Then what you see over here is, you

know, 2019, you have this weird little

landing over here at the end of 2015.

2019, you get a little bit of a leading

indicator into COVID and then you get

this collapse when the Fed U-turns over

here on rates. But I don't know how good

this is as a leading indicator. I think

one of the reasons you're seeing this

sort of compression is what I like to

call it. Uh let's do this here. So,

let's make this box nice and big because

I I want you to see this. I think this

is pretty valuable. So, we're going to

go here. Look at this. Okay, if I get

rid of the yellow here, look at this

consolidation right here. See that? This

is in the Chicago PMI. Now, let me drag

this out. We are like in recessionary

territory historically. We are at the

lows of these Chicago PMI readings.

Why? Well, maybe because rates are high.

Smaller companies that can't spend money

on capex are getting crushed. The desire

to hire people is falling. And you're

seeing that in the data. So, like what's

actually happening is what you're seeing

in the data. And it it makes sense. And

like to me, I feel like I'm in a unique

position because I could see the

decisions we're making as a company with

House Act. Uh now, of course, you know,

markets today are a little fussy. And

I'll explain why markets are a little

fussy today. Uh, you know, this morning

in the alpha report, uh, we gave a few

calls. Number one, we said, "Wait on the

cues. Do not buy calls on the ques."

Somebody asked me right here like, "Oh,

should I buy calls on the cues today?" I

go, "No." I'll tell you why I said no in

just a moment. I said, I'm like, I'm not

personalized financial advice, but I

don't think it's time for calls on the

Q's. So, in our alpha report, we're

like, no, wait. Like, don't touch this.

And look, the Q's fall off a cliff.

And then in the alpha report as well, we

said don't yolo into a firm. And sure

enough, we're lower on a firm than where

we were uh at the open certainly since

the first 5 minutes of the day, but also

in pre-market. This is exactly the

opposite of yesterday where people were

writing me nice memos and letters.

They're like, Kevin, I just I made so

much money on the snowflake calls

yesterday cuz we were up, you know, 8%

in pre-market and then we ran all the

way to 22% up on the day, which is

awesome. Uh, and then this morning

somebody's like, "Hey, are we going to

go calls on Snowflake again?" And I'm

like, "No, you're going to have some

give back today." Wow, that's, you know,

down 1.3%. It's not a big give back, but

like these are just the little calls

that you could see in writing or in our

course member live streams in the alpha

report. I also in the alpha report this

morning, which you get lifetime access

to if you use coupon code bullish

catalyst

>> over at me.com, I also mentioned that

Tesla's probably going to struggle at

347. And sure enough, uh, another

struggle said at 347. So, why is the

market fussy today? Well, the market uh

today is frustrated because of Lisa

Cook. Okay, markets want to know what's

going to happen with Lisa Cook. This is

what we talked about in the Alpha Report

this morning. We said, "Look, you really

can't go calls until you hear what

happens with the Lisa Cook hearing,

which is scheduled for 7 a.m. That's an

hour and a half ago now at this point."

Because if judges get serious power to

align with Donald Trump and say, "That's

right. Start picking people off at the

Fed, you're going to see yields go up

and you're going to see stocks go down."

We're at all-time highs. There's not

much of an appetite right now for this

sort of nervousness, especially when you

see margins compressing at Dell. You

see, you know, Nvidia obviously once

they remove their Chinese earnings

softening a little bit on that data

center revenue. And while it was like a

total nominal miss and Nvidia still has

like the most pricing power of any

company in the world, it's enough for

people to go, you know what, maybe maybe

we just need to wait a little bit to see

what happens with Cook. And so this is

the strategy we set up today. We set up

that wait for the Lisa Cook information

before you go bullish because what you

really need is a judge to say, "No,

we're going to let Lisa Cook go through

a period of due process. we're going to

give her a chance to testify. Uh, and

we're not going to let the president

fire people from the Fed without due

process. Now, if it truly comes out that

she is guilty and she's, you know, the

Department of Justice comes out and

says, you know what, she not only is she

indicted, she is convicted of fraud on

on mortgage applications. Then we can

start evaluating, all right, she's now

convicted of fraud on mortgage

documents. Now, we're willing to say you

have enough cause and you can go ahead

and remove her even though the the issue

happened before she was ever a fed

governor, right? Uh but for a judge

today to say that's right, kick her out,

Marcus be pissed and and and they should

be because it basically says we don't

have a system of checks and balances. It

basically says we have a system of one

party rule or one person, one man rule.

We now have uh Japan cancelling planned

White House trip.

More tariff drama, I guess. Uh but

anyway, you know, that's my sort of

distillation. Uh but there's also Bank

of America. Take a look at this. This I

thought was there were some really cool

notes in this. Okay, so first of all,

Bank of America talks about how China

has become the world's best performing

stock market over the past 2 years,

though they're, you know, stock market

to bond ratio not doing as well. Uh, but

take a look at this. Some of these notes

are absolutely incredible. So, I want to

shout these out. And this is why I I

always like to say if you make it to the

end of these these video segments, you

get you get a lot of extra data. Like, I

don't I don't try to ramble my videos

off. I want to give you extra data. Uh,

you know, it's like your reward, the

icing on the cake. So listen to some of

this. All right. Financial asset prices

right now relative to GDP

are just below the peak that we saw in

the second quarter of 2021.

Okay. You know what the second quarter

of 2021 was? That's when we got the

SH19.

Who remembers that? Who was here for

that? Leave a comment. Uh that was

crazy. Then we got uh and then I think

it was Wait, there was another one.

There was or was or was it Prey? There

was Prey. We got two. We got Prey. Prey.

Oh, Prey was first. Prey was Q2 2021 and

then I think it was Jan

um Q1 2022 was SH9T. That's what it was.

Cuz the first time we got Prey and we're

like, "Oh, this is this is not good."

Uh, and then we got SH19, which the

craziest thing about that code is the

ninth letter in the alphabet is I.

Like, how do you get that on a Bloomberg

terminal code to unlock as your

two-factor authentication? How do you

get prey and then SH9T?

That was just some like crazy omen

stuff. Uh, but uh but anyway, that

that's that's some crazy stuff. So,

anyway, some other notes here. Central

bank. Okay, this is interesting. Look at

this. Central bank rate cuts since 2008,

global financial crisis. There have been

1641.

91 cuts thus far in 2025, the fastest

easing cycle uh since 2020. That's huge.

Donald Trump has signed 196 executive

orders

uh surpassing the rate of FDR. That's

crazy. Uh these are some big numbers

here. US labor productivity growth.

Look, this is in alignment again with

what we're saying.

US labor productivity growth just 1.8%

in the 2020s now at 1.3% which is

similar to 1.2 at the beginning of the

2010s. Remember what Waller said

yesterday? Waller's like our numbers are

looking like we're in the early 2010s.

This isn't good for the labor market. We

need to stimulate the labor market. This

is why we need to cut rates now. We need

to stop waiting. you know, we were at

2.7% and 2.2% in the 2000s and 90s,

respectively.

Uh, Bank America thinks that we're going

to peak out on the S&P 500 at 9,900

in September of 2027.

So, I don't know if that means like

we're going to go through a recession

first uh or what, but we're at 6,400

right now on uh on the S&P 500. So that

that'd be like another 50% upside there,

right? We've got uh S&P price to book

ratio currently at the highest level

since 1946.

So on the expensive side, little

enthusiastic there. Uh 8.1%

US graduate unemployment rate in the

past 3 months. This is something else

that Waller talked about uh this uh you

know struggle amongst youth employment

which he calls cycllically sensitive and

US electricity prices up 6.3% in the

past 12 months. This interesting on

crypto here.3% is the average allocation

to crypto as a percentage of assets

under management compared to 2.2%

for gold which implies a 7x potential

there. Very very cool. So uh in in terms

of allocation, right? We're not we're

not saying that, you know, crypto for

sure all cryptos are going to 7x, but it

gives you a little bit of an idea here.

So very very interesting. I again I

think if you put all of this together,

you know, it's always to me important to

to string this all together. Businesses

right now are propping up the economy

because businesses can spend and make

ROI on AI. That's what we're seeing at

Houseack. We're a small business, right?

Uh that's, you know, what what I'm

seeing in the data across the board at

other companies. Companies are throwing

money into AI related investments. They

don't want to get left behind. They want

to develop their own AI. They want to

maybe even license their own AI. I mean,

that's what we're planning on doing, you

know, because there's there's just so

much money in AI software. It's

incredible. And really very few people

are actually innovating in in real

estate AI, which that's just where we

think we're going to have a really big

competitive advantage because most

people on Wall Street don't do real

estate and most real estate agents don't

do Wall Street. All right. Uh so, uh

real estate investor, it's like real

estate investors and stock investors are

like two different kinds of evil. It's

very interesting. It's rare to get both.

Uh so you know if you string all this

data together you have an economy that

feels bad for people but is great for

corporate investment and corporate

profits. And I think that's why we're

seeing the GDP numbers pop, which they

even say to private domestic investment

growth. You know, it's basically your

capex growth. Uh it's just weighed down

by

employment and people, but propped up by

AI and and investment. Uh but anyway, in

the meantime, we'll be waiting for the

Lisa Cook information. Make sure you get

your coupon over at meetc.com. Use

coupon code

>> bullish catalyst. bullish catalyst. It

is the end of the month, Labor Day

coming up here. And uh take advantage of

that coupon code.

>> Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this.

>> We'll we'll try a little advertising and

see how it goes.

>> Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you.

>> Kevin Praath there, financial analyst

and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great

to get your take.