Upcoming book on Amazon's quest to 'own the world'; DJT down again; Make sure you're getting paid a fair interest rate on your cash; Diving in Cuba
1) An excerpt in the Wall Street Journal from a new book about Amazon (AMZN) is damning, but it also makes me like the stock more – not less...
Due out on April 23, the book is titled The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power.
It'll be on my list to check out in full when it releases. But for now, here's the WSJ article on it that I recommend reading: Inside Amazon's Push to Crack Trader Joe's – and Dominate Everything. Excerpt:
In meetings with senior leaders, [Jeff] Bezos would describe a world where customers didn't visit Amazon.com once a month for various items like paper towels and batteries. Instead, Amazon would become embedded in the customer's lifestyle.
Bezos came to call this the "daily habit," which would make Amazon an essential part of people's lives in both implicit and explicit ways. The company dissected habits that people formed, like watching videos or listening to music, and decided that whatever those categories were, Amazon needed to be in them...
Wall Street has made vocal bets on Amazon's ability to disrupt ever-new sectors. The day Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017, for instance, nearly $22 billion of market value among American grocery chains was erased.
As it continued entering industries, watching Amazon decimate rivals became a pastime on Wall Street, with one firm even keeping a "Death by Amazon" index. The astonishing range of commercial activities the company entered has put it head-to-head with juggernauts such as FedEx, Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart and Kroger.
Amazon remains one of my favorite big-cap stocks.
2) Inflation is picking up a bit...
It rose 3.48% year over year in March, up from 3.15% in February and 3.09% in January and was the highest reading since last September.
As a result, interest rates are rising on everything from U.S. Treasurys to mortgages to credit cards to auto loans. Investors are now expecting that the Federal Reserve will only cut rates twice this year (down from earlier expectations of seven).
Is this something to worry about?
I don't think so. It's right in line with what I've been saying for quite some time: that the economy will remain strong and inflation will stay in the 3% to 4% range, which I think will be good for stocks.
Here's another piece of positive data from this post on X (formerly Twitter):
3) While higher interest rates are bad if you're borrowing money, they're great for those holding cash – as long as you take advantage...
A hat tip to Charlie Bilello for flagging one of the quickest ways you can earn free money – don't let your cash sit in a savings account earning the national average of a scandalously low 0.47% when you can earn close to 5%.
As Bilello correctly notes, folks can get these higher rates via money-market funds, high-yield savings accounts, or just buying Treasury bills directly (buying Treasurys has the added benefit of not being taxable at the state level).
Here's the chart Bilello included in his latest Week in Charts post:
I wasn't aware of the degree to which banks are completely screwing their customers by failing to pay them something close to a market rate...
4) Shares of Truth Social operator Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), about which I've warned my readers numerous times, tumbled another 18% yesterday after the company filed an S-1 registration statement that will allow company insiders to sell millions of shares.
I don't blame them – if I owned this piece-of-junk stock, I would sell every share I could before it crashes into the single digits...
5) Picking up where I left off in yesterday's e-mail...
After my wife Susan and I spent four days in Havana, she flew home and I took a bus for seven hours halfway across Cuba to the tiny seaside town of Júcaro, shown on this map:
There I joined 14 friends (most of whom had flown directly from Miami to Camagüey, which is only two and a half hours from Júcaro), and we boarded a 160-foot, 15-cabin dive boat, Jardines Avalon III:
From Júcaro, we motored 40 miles over five hours to a beautiful chain of islands called Jardines de la Reina (Queen's Gardens) National Park, which we had to ourselves (we saw two similar Jardines Avalon boats, but they had been chartered by fishermen, not divers).
Over the next six days, we did three dives a day – exploring the beautiful, almost untouched marine park.
It was some of the best diving I've ever done. And that's saying something because I've been diving for nearly 40 years.
The highlights, as you can see in the pictures below, were giant groupers, schools of tarpon, and sharks accompanying us on every dive – fortunately, they were harmless reef sharks (I've posted more pictures on Facebook here):
Another highlight of the trip was being off the grid for six full days (Cuba doesn't allow satellite phones or dishes).
Believe it or not, I didn't suffer – in fact, my mind was well rested, and I was much more able to be present with my friends, rather than being constantly distracted. (Note to self: this is healthy, and I should probably do it more often!)
If you're an avid diver, I highly recommend this trip (and adding three or four days in Havana as well). We booked it through Kevin Purdy at All Star Liveaboards. If you contact him (you can send him an e-mail here), tell him I sent you!
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.