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☕️ Meta to $1,000 and time to go bottom-fishing for – gasp – Intel?

Jul 02, 2025

Howdy! 👋

Headlines say that the markets are down after an unexpected decline in private payrolls data.

Sorta.

Take a look at the US10YR Treasury yield.

That’s your “tell” – meaning the signal that reveals what’s really happening beneath the headlines. A term borrowed from poker.

It’s still higher at 4.283% as I type.

Here’s why this is important.

Treasury yields control the cost of money and when that rises, stocks tend to fall because heavily leveraged traders don’t want to pay the vigorish – meaning what it costs to borrow piles of money they use to boost their returns.

If anything, the weak ADP jobs report is just a convenient explanation.

Why won’t you hear what I am telling you anywhere else?

That, too, is a simple explanation.

My guess is that 99% of news personalities have never run real money, so they have no idea how traders really do their jobs and, bluntly, it takes too much time to explain in the 10 seconds per headline that seem to pass for deep coverage these days. 🤦

Anyhoooo….

Don’t let it faze you.

Rates are for traders, profits are for investors.

My guess is the Nasdaq goes positive by the time you read this and perhaps the S&P 500, too… depending on whether or not traders can “shed” enough risk and leverage that they’re comfortable buying again.

How do I know?

I’d be doing the same thing.

Here’s my playbook.

1 – Is it time to buy Meta?

I joined my friend and colleague, the venerable Scott Shellady—aka “The Cow Guy” on RFDTV yesterday. We spoke about Meta and the investment potential of AI which, I maintain, is still one of the single largest investable themes in recorded human history. (Watch)

I think Meta goes to $1,000 a share.

Will I buy it?

Directly… that remains to be seen. I still don’t trust Zuck, but that’s just me.

I love the fact that plenty of people do and celebrate everyone who is onboard.

Meanwhile, I’m content with a fund that owns shares via the Fund Folio, a retirement friendly, simple concept I created for the OBA Family.

2 – AstraZeneca just put a nail in the coffin that used to be London’s stock exchange

You’ve heard me say it dozens of times… Money is like water in that it will always flow to where it’s treated best.

Seems like UK politicians are getting another lesson the hard way today.

I’m not surprised, nor should you be.

AstraZeneca, Britain’s most valuable company on the FTSE 100, is reportedly considering moving its stock listing from London to the US because CEO Pascal Soriot is apparently fed up with the UK’s regulatory hurdles around new drug approvals and pricing systems. (Read)

Were it not for geopolitics at the moment, I think it would have otherwise gone to Shanghai but that’s a story for another time.

This isn’t just “another” company on that side of the pond.

AstraZeneca is the single largest, most valuable company listed on the London Exchange with a market cap of £160B.

If it leaves, you can bet dimes to dollars or in this case pounds sterling that others will follow.

Companies listed in London often trade at ~30% lower valuations than their US counterparts. Add in tighter regulations, fewer incentives for growth, and a smaller investor pool, and the choice becomes obvious.

Why stay somewhere that punishes your success?

Many won’t.

Trade Idea: Short or avoid UK stocks if AstraZeneca actually does hit the eject handle. There are a few options listed on the London Exchange (oh, the irony).

Xtrackers FTSE 100 Short Daily Swap UCITS ETF

L&G FTSE 100 Super Short Strategy Daily 2X UCITS ETF

WisdomTree FTSE 100 3x Daily Short ETF

Closer to home, there is no direct inverse to the FTSE 100 but there is a fund that could help you “backdoor” the trade via exposure to Europe.

ProShares UltraShort FTSE Europe (EPV): This ETF aims to deliver twice the inverse return of the FTSE Developed Europe All Cap Index, meaning it goes up when the index goes down. Like two of the other three funds I’ve just mentioned, it is leveraged, though, which means it is totally inappropriate for anything other than extremely short-term daily use because it could deviate widely from intended performance over longer time periods. What a mouthful!

3 – Did Jamie D. just get his way?

JPM’s CEO Jamie Dimon sued regulators in October 2024 because he felt the powers that be were out of line with what he called overlapping or ill-conceived rules on capital requirements, card payments and open banking among other things.

“It’s time to fight back” he said bluntly at the time.

Well, what d’ya know.

JPMorgan Chase just got a big regulatory win. (Read)

The Federal Reserve has reduced its Stress Capital Buffer (SCB) from 3.3% to 2.5%, lowering the bank’s required CET1 capital ratio to 11.5% from 12.3%.

Hang with me.

This frees up ~$18 billion in excess capital, giving JPM more firepower for shareholder returns.

Not surprisingly, JPM wasted no time, announcing:

A $50 billion buyback – the largest by any U.S. bank

A dividend hike to $1.50 per share, a 7% increase over last quarter

JPMorgan is a masterclass in capital management and risk assessment. It’s also very bluntly an excellent case in why I prioritize strong executive leadership when it comes to selecting the stocks I want to own.

Regional banks, which people constantly tell me are worth a look, pale in comparison when you’re playing in the big leagues.

Buy the best, ignore the rest!

Hooyah!

Btw, do you know what to look for in a CEO? If so, groovy. If not and you’d like some help, I’ll be here.

4 – Figma’s next hat trick

Back in September 2022, I told you about Adobe’s $20 billion bid to buy Figma, the collaborative design tool that runs circles around Adobe’s own products.

Regulators didn’t see the mojo.

Figma and Adobe scrapped their acquisition in 2023 after UK regulators blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. Adobe had to pay Figma a $1 billion breakup fee.

Now, Figma is filing to go public on its own. (Read)

The company plans to list under the ticker FIG on the NYSE, after a $12.5 billion valuation in last year’s tender offer. CEO Dylan Field says investors should expect Figma to “take big swings” as a public company – including its own acquisitions.

This is a fascinating plot twist.

The thesis remains: big tech buys growth. But when regulators block the buyouts, strong startups like Figma end up IPO’ing anyway – just with an extra billion in their pocket and an even stronger balance sheet.

Either way, myPOV is that owning the big dogs still puts you in front of the trend which is why in situations like this one it’s also worth keeping an eye on companies like Figma that survive the acquisition gauntlet to emerge stronger and ready to swing for the fences.

5 - Intel: time to go bottom fishing?

Newly seated CEO Lip-Bu Tan has concluded that the manufacturing path chosen by former CEO Pat Gelsinger was a bust. So he’s shifting gear according to reports on CNBC citing the usual “sources.” (Read)

Lip-Bu Tan wants to convince other companies to use Intel facilities to make their chips.

Hail Mary or stroke of genius?

I could make the case for either.

Intel turned from a once storied legend into a company that badly lost its way, having missed both AI and mobile.

The process he’s talking about ditching is called 18A, which is apparently roughly equivalent to TSMC’s N3 manufacturing process if I have my facts straight. And the one he wants to go to, 14A, would give it a better shot but… and this is the part where I get intrigued… require customers to place their bets and wait.

Wall Street probably won’t like that, so I view this like famed boxer Mohammed Ali viewed the “rope a dope” tactic he used so successfully.

Lip-Bu is planning a shift, but existing customers will draw on 18A.

Intel would take a multi-billion-dollar write-off to move away from 18A and Wall Street would punish the stock terribly.

If however – and this is the bet here – Lip-Bu successfully convinces major customers like Amazon and Microsoft to go to 14A along with Apple and Nvidia that I’ve got to guess are the real targets here, there could be new contracts, new revenue and new profits.

Trade Idea: A series of speculative LowBall Orders at progressively lower levels. $20, $15 and even $10, for example.

Hmmm. 🤔