Yo Pit Crazies,

You know it's a slow day when SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) moves less than its own dividend.

I'm blaming the whole thing on the Anthropic IPO.

For those who don't know, SPY pays a dividend every quarter, and the latest one ran about $1.89. The dividend comes off the SPY price 4 times a year, and Friday morning was one of those times. The S&P 500 added 0.17 percent on the day, which works out to roughly $1.27 in SPY terms.

If SPY actually goes up because of news, you collect a two for one: the dividend plus the gain. After Wednesday's FOMC fireworks and Thursday's bounce, Friday was a snoozer.

Reuters has Anthropic going public around a $2 trillion valuation. Granted, that's as close to a flat-out grift as I can see. Microsoft (MSFT) needed 46 years to reach $2 trillion, and Anthropic could do it in 5.

Any stock that owns a piece of Anthropic is sitting like a dead duck.

I mentioned this earlier in the week, but the CCP runs an active social media bot team that stays busy sowing discontent. Meta tied one network to Chinese law enforcement back in 2023 and pulled about 7,700 fake Facebook accounts. The operators worked in shifts, with lunch and dinner breaks on Beijing time.

China's AI labs compete with Anthropic directly. Last week Anthropic said it caught 7 of them using fake-account networks to copy Claude.

Plenty of other interests don't want to see Anthropic go public at such a high valuation, either. CNBC reports the company's own prospectus will list the public backlash against AI as a risk factor.

The negativity drags down AI sentiment, and right now that makes stocks crawl. That could change. Reuters says the formal road show won't kick off until mid-October at the earliest, and heading into the weekend the warm-up isn't going well.

Why I'd Take Delivery at 95

Zoom (ZM) is one of the stocks getting hit. It’s acting flat-out horrible.

At a $2 trillion Anthropic, Zoom's stake works out to roughly $6.5 billion before dilution. I'd expect the stock to do better on that, but traders are leaving it in droves.

Zoom already carried the stake at $3.13 billion at the end of July, and the whole company has a market cap around $25 billion.

I sold some 95/85 put spreads (I collected cash up front on a bet that ZM holds above $95, with my loss capped at $85). They're sucking wind because the media hype around the Anthropic IPO is dead horrible.

I'm prepared to take delivery there, meaning I'd buy the shares at $95.

ZM 1 Year Chart

A lot of this kind of investing is waiting things out. If the value is there, it'll come to the surface eventually. I haven't bought any more shares yet, but it's getting there.

I do think the bots are making the news cycle negative, and I do know who to go to for good information.

Frank Gregory is looking at a few more stocks that have gotten the bot treatment, in a sector that's ready for a move.

Those dang bots are nasty. Maybe Frank can help.

Hope this was helpful,

Andrew Giovinazzi