Up Up Up - Santa will be pleased. Diverging outcomes. Interesting M&A activity and a blast from the past. PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm Up - AND it is LIVE - CTP Cup for 2024 - Deals - opened and closed - M&A - Two outcomes - same datapaoints - Diverging Outcomes - Caught Red handed - Guess the Bank (again) - Gamestop's new strategy Market Update - Bitcoin Update - Boom and Busting - Just as everyone getting back in - Big News for CRISPR - Big price too! - Gas prices -LOW - OIL - keeps going lower - VIX - 5-year LOW History: Jan. 5, 2022: The Dow hit its all-time high of 36,952.65. Today's Close: 36,577.94 SHAMELESS PLUGS - H&C/JCD VIX - Sub 13 print - - Lowest since 2018! - No Fear - no hedging DataPoints - Soft landing - not much different than a vibrant economy - How do yo have a vibrant economy when Fed trying to slow down? - Data supports hard and soft landing - Diverging outcomes - which is it? Caught AGAIN - Wells Fargo was snared in an industrywide probe into mortgage bankers' use of loan discounts last year, CNBC has learned.| - The discounts, known as pricing exceptions, are used by mortgage personnel to help secure deals in competitive markets. At Wells Fargo, for instance, bankers could request pricing exceptions that typically lowered a customer's APR by between 25 to 75 basis points. - The practice, used for decades across the home loan industry, has triggered regulators' interest in recent years over possible violations of U.S. fair lending laws. Black and female borrowers got fewer pricing exceptions than other customers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has found. More Competition - AMD! - Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft said at an AMD investor event last week they will use AMD's newest AI chip, the Instinct MI300X. - If AMD's latest high-end chip is good enough for the technology companies and cloud service providers building and serving AI models when it starts shipping early next year, it could lower costs for developing AI models, and put competitive pressure on Nvidia' - NVDA slid for a hot second - then buying happened again.... - AMD stock up to $137 (about 10% from comments) Bitcoin - Bitcoin hit $44,000 last Tuesday, its highest in almost a year and a half, fueled by bets that U.S. regulators will soon approve stock-market traded bitcoin funds. - Bitcoin down $4200 on this money... - Jamie Dimon thrashes out about crypto - ---"I've always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, et cetera," --- "If I was the government, I'd close it down," M&A - U.S. health insurer Cigna has ended its attempt to negotiate an acquisition of rival Humana after the pair failed to agree on price - Instead - Cigna announced plans to buy back $10 billion worth of shares - Shares rallied 12% on the news - HOW ABOUT LOWERING HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS??? More M&A - An investor group consisting of Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital has made a $5.8 billion offer to take department store chain Macy's private, according to a person familiar with the matter on Sunday. - Is this for real or just pump and dump stunt? - Stock is up 70% in last 30 days - you think anyone knew about this? - WHY would someone buy a dying department store? Real Estate? New Strategy - Ganestop - OH MY - In its quarterly report released last Wednesday night, GameStop announced two changes to its corporate investment plan: 1) company cash can now be used to buy equities instead of just short-term debt, 2) and that Cohen is in charge of the investments. Blast from the Past - Picard, is the lawyer working on collecting for Madoff claims