Escaping the Rat Race

Quote of the Day 💭

“I don’t care how rich you are. I don’t care whether you’re a top Wall Street banker. If somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear, and how to behave, you’re not a free person. You’re not actually rich.” -Naval Ravikant

Market Update

Everyone is keeping a close watch on inflation data coming out this week.

Why does this matter?

If inflation is sticky then the Fed will need to continue hiking up interest rates. That will bring stocks down, especially growth stocks, that make up the majority of the NASDAQ.

For our portfolio, we are patiently waiting to time an entry into tech. We take a four-pronged approach.

1. The Market- How is it reacting to economic news?

2. The Fundamentals- Is the company financially healthy with good growth?

3. The Technicals- Is there an established linear trendline or is it jumping all over the place?

4. The Reaction- How is the stock reacting to market news and its own news?

Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer 🚘

TSLA- Friday Close @ $248.27

Big updates out of Morgan Stanley this morning. The Wall Street firm came out with a buy rating and price target of $400 for the electric car maker, citing AI developments from their Dojo supercomputer.

Unlike many competitors, Tesla is building a computer vision supercomputer in-house. Dojo will be used for video training to get one step closer to full self-driving. By bringing the hardware in-house, Tesla will have the ability to sell their supercomputer to other tech companies, directly competing in the hardware space with big players like Nvidia.

What to look for?

It’s important to see how markets react to this news. Already we are seeing the premarket up ~6% for TSLA.

We’ll keep a look out for what the rest of the street does. Here is where they stand now on TSLA.

UBS: $270 price target

JP Morgan: $265 price target

Goldman Sachs: $275 price target

Apple iPhone 15 🍎

APPL- Friday Close @ $178.18

Big news for the tech giant last week as China officially banned government officials from using iPhones. China (19% revenue) is Apples 3rd biggest market behind Europe (22%) and of course the U.S. (43%). Apple shares took a hit to the tune of -6% over the past week after losing $200 billion, but the stock is still trending upward in expanded charts.

Why would China do this? Well, it stems from a US vs. China tech war. The two world powers do not want to continue relying on one another, and want to remain safe from cybersecurity threats. However, Apple relies heavily on Chinese manufacturing, so it will be something to keep an eye on in the upcoming months as Apple tries to rebound and continue developing supply chains in other nations, like India and Taiwan.

Despite this news, Chinese citizens will still be able to buy the iPhone and sales in greater China were up 8% from last year.

Upcoming news: 

Tomorrow is the official keynote release of the iPhone 15, with pre orders starting Friday the 15th. With iPhones already taking up a whopping 27% of the worldwide smartphone market, Apple will need to continue innovating and developing new ideas. And they’ve done so with the Vision Pro set to release early next year. The Vision Pro will be Apple’s first new product line since the Apple Watch released in 2015.

What to look out for?

Keep an eye on Apple this week as the new iPhone is released. It will be important to see how the stock responds to the product release and pre orders.