<p>JCD BACK IN THE HOUSE!<img decoding="async" class="alignright" src="https://www.dhunplugged.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/dh_795_banner.jpg" width="370" height="201" /></p> <p>Correction in some areas and sectors.</p> <p>Crude oil DROPS after &#8220;good&#8221; talks and a deal brewing with Iran.</p> <p>Airports are a mess.</p> <p>PLUS we are now on <strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/30bQIjH9Gw4es27XYrYKJL">Spotify</a> and <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/79261e60-0492-43c0-b1a2-708ebeb4bd7e/DH-Unplugged">Amazon Music/Podcasts</a></strong>!</p> <hr /> <p><!--more--></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><div class="su-spoiler su-spoiler-style-fancy su-spoiler-icon-plus-circle su-spoiler-closed" data-scroll-offset="0" data-anchor-in-url="no"><div class="su-spoiler-title" tabindex="0" role="button"><span class="su-spoiler-icon"></span>Click HERE for Show Notes and Links</div><div class="su-spoiler-content su-u-clearfix su-u-trim"></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar.</strong></span></p> <hr /> <h4 style="text-align: center;"><b>Love the Show? </b>Then how about a Donation?</h4> <div align="center"> <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><input title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" alt="Donate" name="submit" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" type="image" /><br /> <img decoding="async" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></form> </div> <hr /> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://twitter.com/THErealDVORAK"><strong>Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter</strong></a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://twitter.com/andrewhorowitz"><strong>Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter</strong></a></p> <p><strong>Warm-Up<br /> </strong>- JCD BACK IN THE HOUSE<br /> - Need a new CTP<br /> - Airports are a mess<br /> - Not Kosher - Futures moves</p> <p><strong>Markets<br /> </strong>- From the Brink....All is good?<br /> - Correction in some areas and sectors<br /> - US Dollar Rises, Gold, Silver and Bitcoin Drop<br /> - Crude oil DROPS after "good" talks and a deal brewing with Iran - reversing all of the above</p> <p><strong>JCD UPDATE</strong><br /> - AH waiting by the microphone on a Tuesday in March - - no John... 9pm, 9:05, 9:15pm...<br /> - Health update etc...Can we get the story?<br /> - Thoughts on John S. Dvorak (Mimi on No Agenda) - Family backup!</p> <p><strong>Market Update</strong><br /> - Small-Caps taking the brunt of the selling<br /> - Russell 2000 small-caps are down 10% from their high - an official correction<br /> -- Interestingly the R2000 is still up this year by about 2%<br /> - Stocks up on Monday after President Trump says intense negotiations over weekend and postpones targeted attacks for 5 days (after giving a 48 hour ultimatum)</p> <p><strong>Manipulation? Say it ain't so...</strong><br /> - Dateline Monday morning...<br /> - Futures took a leg down pre-market - even after Friday (after close) President Trump said he was looking to wind down the Iran affair<br /> - At around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&#38;P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume.<br /> - A similar pattern was observed in oil markets.<br /> - Roughly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump posted a market-moving announcement about Iran on Truth Social.<br /> - Futures on DJ up 1,000 and oil down 89%<br /> --- Were there really conversations and negotiations over the weekend?</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>A Few Leftovers that need to be discussed</strong></em></span></p> <p><strong>Private Credit Again</strong><br /> - All of a sudden they are admitting there is a problem.....<br /> - Blackstone Inc. approved redemptions of a record 7.9% from its flagship private credit fund, totaling about $3.8 billion.<br /> - Redemption requests have increased across multiple private credit funds in recent quarters.<br /> - Investor unease is being driven by concerns over the private credit asset class, particularly exposure to software companies vulnerable to AI disruption.<br /> - According to Hugh Chung, CIO of Endowus, Blackstone’s experience suggests these concerns are asset-class wide, not limited to a small group of managers.<br /> - Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan warned that a shakeout is coming for private credit firms, driven by rising defaults on loans to software companies.<br /> - Rowan emphasized that the shakeout is unlikely to be short-term, calling it foreseeable and predictable, and underscoring the importance of disciplined underwriting and strong risk management.<br /> - He argued that investors should prefer having credit risk reside within private markets firms, rather than on bank balance sheets backed by government-insured deposits, which can amplify systemic risk.<br /> - <strong>LATEST</strong>: Apollo is curbing redemptions from one of their biggest Private Credit funds.</p> <p><strong>Michael Gayed:</strong> Private credit default rate just hit 9.2%. That's higher than 2008 bank loan peaks. $1.8 trillion in assets, $100B in secondary liquidity. 18:1 mismatch</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="su-lightbox" data-mfp-src="https://www.dhunplugged.com/wp-content/uploads/2035/10/privatecreditwoes.jpg" data-mfp-type="image" data-mobile="yes"><a href="https://www.dhunplugged.com" class="su-button su-button-style-default" style="color:#FFFFFF;background-color:#2D89EF;border-color:#246ec0;border-radius:5px" target="_self"><span style="color:#FFFFFF;padding:0px 16px;font-size:13px;line-height:26px;border-color:#6cadf4;border-radius:5px;text-shadow:none"> PRIVATE CREDIT</span></a></span></p> <p><strong>More OpenAI Funding</strong><br /> - Amazon invested $50 billion, Nvidia invested $30 billion and SoftBank invested $30 billion in the round, OpenAI said in a release Friday.<br /> - The investment boosts OpenAI to a $730 billion pre-money valuation, which marks a big jump from its $500 billion valuation in a secondary financing in October.<br /> - The will use some of the money to expland and buy more chips and cloud from NVDA and AMZN (? Circular?)</p> <p><strong>MORE ON THE CIRCULAR SHAM</strong><br /> - OpenAI said it is expanding its existing $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services by $100 billion over the next eight years.<br /> -  AWS will also serve as the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI’s enterprise platform Frontier, which it unveiled earlier this month.</p> <p><strong>AI and Where we stand</strong><br /> - Can we talk about Anthropic? Is the Government going to crush Claude?<br /> - What is our Go-to AI bots?<br /> - What stage are we at right now? LLMs &#62; Infernce&#62;Agentic<br /> - - What comes after Agentic</p> <p><strong>Netflix OUT</strong><br /> - Last week, Netflix exited the bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery after a competing bidder submitted a superior offer.<br /> - The decision followed pre-planned bidding scenarios, with co CEO Ted Sarandos saying the company knew exactly how to respond once the higher offer emerged.<br /> - Sarandos said the Paramount deal is likely to drive significant cost-cutting, including roughly $16 billion in reductions and thousands of job losses.<br /> - He emphasized that Netflix will continue investing in its business and explore new ways to collaborate with theater owners, rather than pursuing large acquisitions.&#124;<br /> - Stock rose nicely on the news</p> <p><strong>Tariff Refund Update</strong><br /> - You are screwed....<br /> -- Trump administration seems hell-bent on keeping our money</p> <p><strong>Airlines</strong><br /> - After a rather bullish commentary from Delta last week....<br /> -  United Airlines is cutting more unprofitable flights over the next two quarters as it prepares for a prolonged period of high jet fuel prices due to the Iran war, even as strong travel demand has allowed U.S. carriers to raise fares.<br /> Chief Executive Scott Kirby said in a staff memo the airline is preparing for oil to rise as high as $175 a barrel and remain above $100 until the end of 2027.<br /> - At those levels, United's annual fuel bill would rise by about $11 billion, more than twice the profit it earned in its "best year ever," he said.<br /> - Ticket prices going up!</p> <p><strong>Gas Prices</strong><br /> - Have you seen diesel prices?<br /> - &#62; $5 gallon on average across the U.S.<br /> -- Implications beyond<br /> --- Let's discuss the similarities to the 1973 oil embargo. (Barry switching license plates)<br /> - 1973–1974 ? Arab oil embargo (the classic “1970s oil embargo”)<br /> - 1979 ? Second oil shock caused by the Iranian Revolution (not an embargo, but another major supply shock)</p> <p><strong>Even So - Fedex</strong><br /> - FedEx Corp. raised its full-year profit forecast, with adjusted earnings expected to be $19.30 to $20.10 a share for the fiscal year.<br /> - The company's shares climbed after the announcement, with the stock advancing about 23% this year through Thursday's close.<br /> - FedEx does not expect the war in the Middle East to have a direct material effect on its business, but the broader consequences, including higher energy prices and volatile shipping patterns, are adversely affecting the global economy.<br /> - In fact, company raised its full year outlook.....<br /> --- Not a material effect???</p> <p><strong>Bad People</strong><br /> - SuperMicro Co-Founder Charged!<br /> - Super Micro shares sank 28% last Friday after U.S. prosecutors charged three people linked with the company, including its co-founder, with helping smuggle billions of dollars worth of AI technology to China. (NVDA chips)<br /> - The U.S. Justice Department charged Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw, sales manager Ruei-Tsang Chang, and contractor Ting-Wei Sun with running a scheme to route U.S.-made servers through Taiwan to Southeast Asia.<br /> - The defendants allegedly used a Southeast Asian company as a middleman to place orders for high-end servers containing restricted Nvidia H200 and Blackwell chips. The equipment was then repackaged into unmarked boxes and diverted to China.<br /> - To evade U.S. audits and customs inspections, the individuals allegedly created thousands of "dummy" servers and used a hair dryer to remove and reattach serial number labels from genuine servers to the fake ones.<br /> --- Soooo, only 3 people did all of this?</p> <p><strong>Amazon Phone</strong><br /> - Amazon's new phone project codenamed 'Transformer'<br /> - Focus on AI integration, Alexa features, and mobile personalization<br /> - Here is what we know:<br /> -------It is a smartphone, not a wearable or accessory<br /> - It is AI-centric, with Alexa deeply integrated<br /> - It is meant to act as a personalized, always-on gateway into Amazon’s ecosystem (shopping, Prime Video, Prime Music, services like Grubhub)<br /> - It is being built inside Amazon’s Devices &#38; Services group by a skunkworks team called ZeroOne, led by former Xbox architect J Allard</p> <p><strong>OpenClaw</strong><br /> - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says OpenClaw could be the next ChatGPT as AI shifts from answering questions to taking action.<br /> - Jensen said : Nvidia is building security around the technology with NemoClaw to enable safe and scalable adoption of AI agents.<br /> - Project OpenClaw: “It is now the largest, most popular, the most successful open-sourced project in the history of humanity,”<br /> - OpenClaw is an open-source autonomous AI agent platform that goes beyond traditional chatbots.<br /> -----Instead of answering questions, these agents can complete tasks, make decisions, and take actions with minimal input from users.<br /> - Use case: Prompt to study images of a kitchen, learn design tools, iterate ideas to learn how to design a kitchen<br /> ------- Jensen says: “Every carpenter can now be an architect. Every plumber will become an architect. We are going to elevate the capabilities of everyone”<br /> ---- What happens to the architects?</p> <p><strong>Something....</strong><br /> - One of the hardest hit countries in all of this mess has been South Korea<br /> - ~70% of South Korea’s crude oil imports come from the Middle East - Most of that oil transits the Strait of Hormuz<br /> - Margin calls kicked in as high margin debt with heavy retail participation<br /> - Won weakened sharply (17-year low)<br /> - Korea economy is dependent on global demand and stable energy prices<br /> - South Korea often leads sell-offs as it is the purest RISK ON market in Asia<br /> ---- SOOOOO, if this thing ends quickly, there is a potential of EWY to move up again....</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <hr /> <h4 style="text-align: center;"><b>Love the Show? </b>Then how about a Donation?</h4> <div align="center"> <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><input title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" alt="Donate" name="submit" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" type="image" /><br /> <img decoding="async" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /></form> </div> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://www.dhunplugged.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/dh_CTP.jpg" alt="dh_CTP" width="602" height="122" /></strong><a href="https://www.dhunplugged.com/CTP/caterpillar/"><strong><br /> THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN for CATERPILLAR<br /> </strong></a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!</strong><strong><br /> </strong></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <hr /> <p><strong>FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS</strong></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p></div></div></p> <hr /> <p style="text-align: center;">See this week’s stock picks <a href="https://www.dhunplugged.com/stock-page/"><strong>HERE</strong></a></p> <hr /> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://twitter.com/THErealDVORAK"><strong>Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter</strong></a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://twitter.com/andrewhorowitz"><strong>Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter</strong></a></p> <hr />