• Fed Funds rate lowered from 5.0% to 4.5%, but mortgage went from 6% to 7%.
• Why. Mortgage rates are tied closer 10 year bonds. And with market uncertainty, people buy bonds:
  • Example: $100 bond pays 5%.
  • Demand drives bond to $98; so implied rate is 7%.
• S&P 500: ~33% is Mag 7
• RSP Equal weight.
• Some correction is healthy.

• Firefighters continue attempts to gain control of almost 40,000 acres of ongoing wildfires, which have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 12,300 structures. See maps of the fire areas and evacuation zones.
• The Palisades Fire is 31% contained, and the Eaton Fire is 65% contained.
• CA FAIR is insurer of last resort. But they only have $200m in cash and $2.5b in reserves.
• A rule change in CA, requires those providing insurance to cover short-fall, which they will do by subsequently raising insurance for ALL CA residents.
• Already hard to get insurance. State Farm, Allstate = NO.

Govt Regulation and Cost

• From Chamath: A tale of incompetence, grift and corruption…
• Governor Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2024-25 California state budget on January 10, projecting a $38 billion shortfall
• Based on the available data, in 2021, the top 1% of earners in California contributed approximately 49.9% of the state's personal income tax revenue.
• Janisse Quiñones, who makes $750k a year,.
• Here’s a public list of all salaries.

Other Regulation

• Marc Andreessen on China's manufacturing dominance
• Marc Andreessen says America is primed for a new golden age. "We have the people, we have the resources. We have geographic security. We have all of these capabilities."We continue to be the beacon of capitalism and enterprise and entrepreneurship.
• Here’s another one from Alex Karp

• $1.5t, $655 and up 67% YoY.
• Zuck on Rogan
• TikTok set to go dark on Sunday

• Starships 7th flight test. The landing burn slowed Super Heavy down and maneuvered itself to the launch and catch tower arms, resulting in the second successful catch of a Super Heavy booster.
• Blue Origin: New Glenn made it, but didn’t successfully land the booster.

Success stories pretty reliably happen for people who combine: solid talent, savvy business sense, 15-20 years of persistent hard work.

Goals: Health, Family and Wealth.

Bryson Deshambeu: 7 hours for hole in 1. $100k.

9000 homes and counting.

Video of homes destroyed.

The California FAIR Plan (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan)

Big pull back. WSJ Jobs report good, so interest rate cut less likely.

@unusual_whales Here are the top political traders of 2024.

• Markets up 25%.
• 25 congress people beat the markets. 6 people at or over 100%.

• Dana White joins the Board of Directors.
• Freezing 3rd party fact checking.
  • Play Mark Zuckerberg video about why?
• Eagerness to work with Trump.
• Also on board:
  • CEO of Broadcom. Up 100% in last year. $1t company. #10 or so.
  • Marc Andreeson

• WSJ - Uber and Lyft Gear Up For the Revolution in Driverless Taxis
• Travis Kalinick said “Elon has it covered”
• Tesla videos of self-parking.
• Jim Farley - CEO Ford - On 150 different softwares “confederation of software providers” Play Video

This is the year the markets wake up and realize Tesla is the leader in Autonomous, and Real-world AI.

https://x.com/herbertong/status/1876677493270479271

Source Elon’s interview at CES.

• Thinks humanoid robot will be biggest industry of all time! 3-4 robots/ person.
• Time to first Robot: Play at 10:20. Optimus robot is most advanced robot ever.
  • 1000’s this year. Several 1000.
  • 10x next year. 50-100k robots in 2026.
  • 10x again, so 500k robots in 2027+.
    • 30k robots * 30k price tag = 900,000,000 (900m). $1b.
    • Summary = $1b in 2027. Runrate.

New Model Y is out.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang

• Most interesting “The ChatGPT moment for robotics is coming. Like large language models, world foundation models are fundamental to advancing robot and AV development.

NVIDIA’s decision to invest in xAI ‘s recent $6B round speaks volumes.

Netflix: Squid Game.

Landman

Mel Gibson on Rogan

• 72 million people. 17 million in Bangkok.
• Staying at 4-5 star hotel. $125/ night.
• Golf Courses. Price. Bangkok.
• Entire trip was ~$6500, excluding airfare and dinners.
• Fairly inexpensive, once you are here.

• S&P 500 up 28.5% Year-to-date.
  • Including dividends, the S&P 500 is now up over 29% this year. That sounds abnormally high, but is actually more common than you might think. The S&P 500 has finished with a total return above 25% in 26 out of 96 years since 1928. That's 27% of the time
  • 9.8% return on average since 1928.

$430 high this week. Previously $410 in Nov 2021.

$1.34 trillion market cap. Should easily reach $2-3 trillion in next few years with Robotaxi.

• V13 FSD is off the charts. Numerous reports on this.
  • FSD v13 is better everywhere. There are no regressions that they've identified. It's become obvious that it will be unsupervised soon.
• One of the unique things about Tesla solving self-driving with AI is how novel it is. Everyone else uses $100k+ worth of sensors, cameras, and HD maps to solve for self-driving.
• Optimus is an entire level of vertical growth if it takes off.
  • Video of optimus walking up and down mulch/leafy hill. ‘

Lawfare!

• Delaware activist judge Kathaleen McCormick declines to reinstate Elon Musk's Tesla compensation package, once again overruling the company’s board and more than 72% of its shareholders.

• On X, said Elon and Palantir will work together.
• Alex Karp is phenomenally smart and says what he thinks in public. (See Elon Musk)
• Palantir CEO Alex Karp on the AI landscape: “America is in the very beginning of a revolution that we own, the AI revolution. We own it. It should be called the US AI revolution. Every single relevant company in the world is in this country. The second tier of those

DOGE

• 1 million examples to report, but here is 1: A 2023 Government Accountability Office report found that 17 agencies had less than a quarter utilization of their headquarters buildings early that year.
• Bernie Sanders: “Elon Musk is right”

• New all time highs! $936 this week.
• Netflix option program for employees. Great value.
• I’m watching:
  • Your Honor. Bryan Cranston's Breaking Bad follow-up
  • A man in Full. Jeff Daniels Atlanta real estate tycoon.
  • Thicha: Thai girl taking revenge!! Merched because I’m in Thailand?
  • Tokyo Swindlers.