Hello, 26M here based in Malaysia.
I have a Bachelor's in Accounting & Business Finance (Second Upper) and recently completed my ACCA (Affiliated).
I strictly want to pursue a career in audit so I chose to apply Big 4 and other mid-tier firms (i.e top 20) in my country. However, it has been since 2 months+ and I have yet to get a call or email for an interview.
On the side I have also applied to various banks and industry with two interviews but no offer.
In terms of audit firms, I was wondering whether this is due to my age and a lack of working experience in accounting and audit.
Feel free to share your experience on similar matters relating to this! Any tips in increasing my odds of getting into Big 4 would also be appreciated. Thank you.

Here I am again. After getting moms house cleaned up and getting her SSA finally applied for and headed her way, dads business almost closed, and a LITTANY of other things done, (the list is a months long feat I did in 5 weeks), and also caring for mom with dementia. I had signed a POA for mom so I could investigate her bank accounts. I found lots of financial abuse by methadone sister. Haven’t turned her in yet.
On May 2 I was served with a restraining order and notice to vacate my mother’s house by my older billionaire sister. Little sister convinced her I was the bad guy and that I was causing harm, stealing, blah blah. Older sisters emergency guardianship was overturned in court yesterday by a very stern judge who quickly saw through the BS. (Plus I provided the court text messages that both of their entire affidavits were based on lies).
Judge granted me guardianship of the person and granted older sister guardianship of her estate. This is common practice as they do not want people stealing elderly and moving them out of state, stealing their assets. However I can move my mother to Florida now, as she has begged the court and begged me since right after my father passed in February. After 90 days if all is well, the estate is turned back over to us.
I throughout all of it I kept having this vision of sitting with my mom on the boardwalk of the beach by my house and watching the sun come up. In my vision I see myself turning to her and saying “well, mom, we did it.” I kept telling her throughout all of this that it’s going to be okay, we are going to win this. Her attorney ad litem kept telling me the judge is NEVER going to let her go to Florida.
Thats not the way things work apparently. The court was held yesterday in the 200 year old courtroom in a small Texas town square courthouse (no metal detectors, judge wore a cowboy hat) it was RAGING storming, judge just wanted for mom to be happy and be safe and keep her assets safe. After a trial period her estate will be released back to me. LOL judge said, “Everyone will get along and treat each other with respect. EVERYONE. Or we will have another hearing and it will not be fun for you.” Basically, the judge told my abusive older sister that she’s not allowed to abuse me anymore or else.
I so very much appreciate the laws associated with this whole process. Without them people like my younger sister could just strong arm everyone away from the scene, keep mom’s assets and keep neglecting her. Adversely, if I were a person of the quality of my younger sister and lived out of state, I could “steal” my mother with dementia and her assets and take her across state lines making it a very large, very expensive task to recover it all. I appreciate the laws for that reason as well, that could have been a possibility for younger sister if she was feeling flighty. So all in all it was a win. More work involved with of course certificates and bonds required, but mom gets what she wants.
In a few weeks she will be watching sunrises over the Atlantic and petting chihuahuas and gardening with me, making bread. Thank God for that judge. She was to the point she was refusing help from anyone but me. I can’t imagine how things would be for her if the outcome had been any different. Probably assisted living/borderline nursing care. God is good!!!

I have approx 6 years of PM experience, worked in 2 SaaS companies and 2 large enterprises. Current one being in banking. I joined about 6 months ago and have been tasked with basically an internal project to replacement one system with another that has been built in-house. It was a bit strange at first as my “PM team” are on the business side and we feed work into the squads which have a “PO” type person managing them, however this person is also responsible for 2 other squads. The project is fully fledged with a project manager, BA, UAT testers, Operations are involved etc. while trying to build new features into the new system, they are trying to migrate customers onto it. It’s a complete mess. To add even more complexity, this new system connects to like 3 other systems and has 3 different customer segments (with different needs). The new system also has only about 70% of the functionality of the old system and barely any thought has gone into process improvement or customer needs. It’s now been 7 years and they are still struggling to close the project. Recently I’ve started raising a whole bunch of issues as I find it so inefficient with the way they currently operate (very waterfall), I’ve asked to work closer to the tech squads as I’m ultimately bringing a customer lens to the solution. They have agreed to this and I’m already seeing some improvements. Although it’s very late in the piece now, however I’ve just felt like no one wants to take ownership of anything, not even my own manager who used to tell me not to get involved too much. But this is actually our product and we are accountable for the outcome of this project. My manager has also been on this project since inception and it’s just so disjointed and had so much turnover. I do wonder why not much has moved on the project, it’s like this constant battle between tech and the “business”. My manager also refuses to talk to OPs and used to report into the squad’s PO until they moved to the squad. I can sense some past history and beef. Anyhow, I’ve been asked to give a presentation about how the new change is going as it’s an experiment that hasn’t been done before in the company, so leadership are quite excited to see the outcome. Any help/advice from my fellow PM peers is appreciated!

ANALYSIS:

• CPI update:
• Core CPI came in line with survey, at 0.3%, heading slightly lower in MOM terms vs last month (0.3% vs 0.4% before).
• We can see its a similar scenario as before, with service inflation there, but goods in deflation.
• https://imgur.com/a/3hAiquW
• Significantly, shelter inflation MOM is finally below 0.4%, which was the main headline of the print.
• https://imgur.com/a/GYHD12y
• Following the print, Inflation swaps now price in lower CPI for next month, so traders are more optimistic on inflation to continue lower than they were before, especially as we see oil prices come down this month.
• Market continues to move on the number of rate cuts being priced in for this year. Right now markets continue to price 1 or 2 rate cuts.
• So what does this mean for positioning, as we saw equities push higher?
• Well, as was the case before CPI, we continue to see very bearish positioning on VIX. Traders expect VIX to continue lower, which will increase the liquidity that market makers add. This should support the market higher. nOt much anxiety and fear in the markets.
• Volatility should therefore remain suppressed, for this opex.
• 5300 is the wall to get above, but We see traders buying calls on 5400 now so traders are optimistic in medium term.
• Probably when we look at today, skew is flat, but positioning bullish. We can see choppy day as VIX delta ITM puts are still elevated.
• Sentiment v bullish over next month or more.
• When we look at FX, we see That EURUSD has pared gains, because DXY moved higher. This was mostly because EURUSD had got overbought, and DXY was starting to get short term oversold. When we look at positioning, we see traders still buying calls on 1.09. 1.08 will act as support now.
• GOLD and Silver still see strong positioning, 2400 is wall on Gold. Skew on both gold and silver point higher but seeing low volumes.
• On Oil, traders are looking bullish. The skew points higher, whilst price consolidates. Traders are expecting a bullish breakout soon as seasonal demand tends to pick up in summer. Oil is just currently stuck below 79 on WTI.
• On German market, we see traders still buying calls on 19k but low volumes. Needs v high volume to get to this 19k level. 19k is a massive wall. Today and yesterday, it comes down, but soon it will try to test again. Euro strength will help GER40 go higher.

DATA LEDE:

• China Industrial production YOY came 6.7% up, vs 5.5% expected
• China Retail sales came 2.3% YOY vs 3.8% expected
• So retail sales came weak, industrial production was strong
• Unemployment rate in China fell to 5% from 5.2%, back to lowest level since November.
• NOTE: China also announced measures from PBOC to support housing market.
  
• Final revision to inflation rate in Eurozone came in in line with preliminary readings. No change.
  
• US leading index comes out later, after market opens. Expected to show deteriorating leading economic indicators
  

MARKETS:

• SPX: Following CPI, we saw markets push from 5246, to close above 5300. Yesterday, we aw market reach 5325, partly as result of softer jobless numbers, which points to more rate cuts, before sell off lower below 5300. Now at 5295. 5300 will be resistance again that it will try to break above.
• Nasdaq: Before CPI was at 18,310 just below resistance, pushed higher to reach 18,650, before coming lower again to 18,555. 18600 is a resistance, before 19k as the key resistance.
• Dow: was trading at 39600 before CPI, pushed higher to 40k. Got rejected below 40k. 40k is key resistance to get above.
• GER40: Pushed higher with US markets to 18,910, close to the key 19k resistance which is v strong, before paring gains back to 18,662.
• UK100 just been flat amongst the highs at 8400-8450
• China50 higher with lower unemployment rate and higher industrial production, trading up by 1.5% to 12,850. Main resistance now is going to be 13k. China also announced measures to support housing market.
• HKG50: Trading at 19,500. Key resistance is 20k.
• OIL: still trading flat, skew pointing higher.
• GOLD trading higher after CPI, bounced close to 2400.
• Price of Copper surges to new highs.

FX:

• EURUSD hit 1.09 yesterday, before coming down back to 1.084 now. 1.09 was the wall.
• GBPUSD hit 1.27, before coming down to 1.265 now.
• USDJPY fell from 156 to 153.5, before recovering higher to 156 again now.
• AUDUSD moved higher above 0.67 before paring the gains.
• The paring of gains came as DXY fell to almost 104, before pushing higher from there to 104.8.

MAG7:

• NVDA lower in premarket as Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA. Theyre offering their cloud customers AMD AI processors as an alternative to NVDA.
• TSLA - raised price of Model 3 performance for 2nd time in US by $1k, bringing it to $54,990. Increased price fo white interior for model 3 by $500, now priced at $2000.
• META - starting to test a Tweetdeck like experience for threads.
• NFLX - adds more buy side partners to its budding advertising business. Includes TTD, which had been MSFT’s role exclusively up until this point. GOOGL also added to programmatic partners for advertisers.
• MSFT - EU demands clarity from Microsoft on AI risks in bing.
• MSFT - As mentioned, Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA.

EARNINGS:
AMAT:

• EPS of 2.09 was up 5% YOY, beat estimates of 1.99
• Revenue of 6.65B was flat YOY, beat estimates of 6.52B
• Semiconductor systems revenue, their main segment was 4.9B, beating estimates of 4.8B
• Q3 Guidance:
• Sees adjusted EPS of 1.83-2.19 (vs estimate of 1.83). So ahead of expectations
• Revenue of 6.65+400M, beat estimates of 6.57B. So strong guidance
• Strong results. Said their technologies for chips underpin the major secular shifts we are seeing in AI, IOT, EV and Clean energy

COMPANY SPECIFIC:

• Crypto stocks slightly higher as BTC up 1.5% to 66,500.
• BABA continues higher. Was up a lot as Michael Burry increased his stake in the company
• UAL - Wolfe Research raises to outperform from peer perform
• ARRY - Wells Fargo cuts price target to 14 from 16, still way above current price of 11.34, buy rating maintained
• Nio - China FAW to join Nio battery swap alliance
• SNOW - in talks to acquire AI startup Reka AI for over $1B. Was valued at 300M last June.
• RDDT - OPenAI will integrate Reddit content into ChatGPT and other products. OpenAI will become a reddit advertiser too.
• AMD - Wolfe Research replaced NVDA with AMD on its Wolfe Alpha List.
• AMD - Mcirsofot offers cloud cusomters amd alternative to NVDA AI processors.
• AVGO - say they expect AI chips to account for 35% of semiconductor evneues in 2024, up from 15% in 2023.
• XPEV - aims to deliver their first flying car in 2026, will start taking pre orders this year.
• HSBC down 3% amid reports that shareholder Ping An is looking to trim its stake.
• AMGN - FDA approves Amgen’s treatment for the most deadly form of lung cancer.
• Canada goose - jumps 16% after they reported growth surge in China.
• GS - looks to expand private equity credit lines as dealmaking picks up.
• DXC down on earnings after issuing weak outlook, forecasting revenue to decelerate and is forecasting financial challenges
• TTWO down on earnigns after cutting bookings forecast for Fy 2025. announced a fall 2025 release date for its highly anticipated GTA VI video game
• Li down as is hit with class lawsuit over Li Mega debacle
• STLA - gets buy rating from Piper Sandler

OTHER NEWS:

• CHINA PROPERTY RESCUE PACKAGE.
• China announced multiple measures from PBOC to support Housing market: set up 300B Yuan resending scheme for public housing. Removed mortgage rate floor for individual home buyers. Minimum down payment reduced to 15% for first time.
• THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO BUY HOUSES.
• Bostic yesterday said that he is pleased with inflation progress in April, but the Fed isn’t there yet. Said he doesnt see a recession, and said that lower shelter inflation in recent print was the most significant development for him. Said it will be appropriate for rate cuts later this year, but nothing locked in.
• DOJ yesterday, planned to issue notice of proposed rule making, to reclassify marijuana into a less restrictive category, from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.
• Luxury brand Richemont, which owns Cartier, posts record full year sales and new CEO
• ECB’s Schnabel says that there is little chance of back to back rate cuts from ECB, even if the first rate cut comes in June.
• Uk’s Jeremy Hunt says that he will cut national insurance in Autumnn if he is able to. Says conservatives will cut taxes if they win the election.

ANALYSIS:

• CPI update:
• Core CPI came in line with survey, at 0.3%, heading slightly lower in MOM terms vs last month (0.3% vs 0.4% before).
• We can see its a similar scenario as before, with service inflation there, but goods in deflation.
• https://imgur.com/a/3hAiquW
• Significantly, shelter inflation MOM is finally below 0.4%, which was the main headline of the print.
• https://imgur.com/a/GYHD12y
• Following the print, Inflation swaps now price in lower CPI for next month, so traders are more optimistic on inflation to continue lower than they were before, especially as we see oil prices come down this month.
• Market continues to move on the number of rate cuts being priced in for this year. Right now markets continue to price 1 or 2 rate cuts.
• So what does this mean for positioning, as we saw equities push higher?
• Well, as was the case before CPI, we continue to see very bearish positioning on VIX. Traders expect VIX to continue lower, which will increase the liquidity that market makers add. This should support the market higher. nOt much anxiety and fear in the markets.
• Volatility should therefore remain suppressed, for this opex.
• 5300 is the wall to get above, but We see traders buying calls on 5400 now so traders are optimistic in medium term.
• Probably when we look at today, skew is flat, but positioning bullish. We can see choppy day as VIX delta ITM puts are still elevated.
• Sentiment v bullish over next month or more.
• When we look at FX, we see That EURUSD has pared gains, because DXY moved higher. This was mostly because EURUSD had got overbought, and DXY was starting to get short term oversold. When we look at positioning, we see traders still buying calls on 1.09. 1.08 will act as support now.
• GOLD and Silver still see strong positioning, 2400 is wall on Gold. Skew on both gold and silver point higher but seeing low volumes.
• On Oil, traders are looking bullish. The skew points higher, whilst price consolidates. Traders are expecting a bullish breakout soon as seasonal demand tends to pick up in summer. Oil is just currently stuck below 79 on WTI.
• On German market, we see traders still buying calls on 19k but low volumes. Needs v high volume to get to this 19k level. 19k is a massive wall. Today and yesterday, it comes down, but soon it will try to test again. Euro strength will help GER40 go higher.

DATA LEDE:

• China Industrial production YOY came 6.7% up, vs 5.5% expected
• China Retail sales came 2.3% YOY vs 3.8% expected
• So retail sales came weak, industrial production was strong
• Unemployment rate in China fell to 5% from 5.2%, back to lowest level since November.
• NOTE: China also announced measures from PBOC to support housing market.
  
• Final revision to inflation rate in Eurozone came in in line with preliminary readings. No change.
  
• US leading index comes out later, after market opens. Expected to show deteriorating leading economic indicators
  

MARKETS:

• SPX: Following CPI, we saw markets push from 5246, to close above 5300. Yesterday, we aw market reach 5325, partly as result of softer jobless numbers, which points to more rate cuts, before sell off lower below 5300. Now at 5295. 5300 will be resistance again that it will try to break above.
• Nasdaq: Before CPI was at 18,310 just below resistance, pushed higher to reach 18,650, before coming lower again to 18,555. 18600 is a resistance, before 19k as the key resistance.
• Dow: was trading at 39600 before CPI, pushed higher to 40k. Got rejected below 40k. 40k is key resistance to get above.
• GER40: Pushed higher with US markets to 18,910, close to the key 19k resistance which is v strong, before paring gains back to 18,662.
• UK100 just been flat amongst the highs at 8400-8450
• China50 higher with lower unemployment rate and higher industrial production, trading up by 1.5% to 12,850. Main resistance now is going to be 13k. China also announced measures to support housing market.
• HKG50: Trading at 19,500. Key resistance is 20k.
• OIL: still trading flat, skew pointing higher.
• GOLD trading higher after CPI, bounced close to 2400.
• Price of Copper surges to new highs.

FX:

• EURUSD hit 1.09 yesterday, before coming down back to 1.084 now. 1.09 was the wall.
• GBPUSD hit 1.27, before coming down to 1.265 now.
• USDJPY fell from 156 to 153.5, before recovering higher to 156 again now.
• AUDUSD moved higher above 0.67 before paring the gains.
• The paring of gains came as DXY fell to almost 104, before pushing higher from there to 104.8.

MAG7:

• NVDA lower in premarket as Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA. Theyre offering their cloud customers AMD AI processors as an alternative to NVDA.
• TSLA - raised price of Model 3 performance for 2nd time in US by $1k, bringing it to $54,990. Increased price fo white interior for model 3 by $500, now priced at $2000.
• META - starting to test a Tweetdeck like experience for threads.
• NFLX - adds more buy side partners to its budding advertising business. Includes TTD, which had been MSFT’s role exclusively up until this point. GOOGL also added to programmatic partners for advertisers.
• MSFT - EU demands clarity from Microsoft on AI risks in bing.
• MSFT - As mentioned, Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA.

EARNINGS:
AMAT:

• EPS of 2.09 was up 5% YOY, beat estimates of 1.99
• Revenue of 6.65B was flat YOY, beat estimates of 6.52B
• Semiconductor systems revenue, their main segment was 4.9B, beating estimates of 4.8B
• Q3 Guidance:
• Sees adjusted EPS of 1.83-2.19 (vs estimate of 1.83). So ahead of expectations
• Revenue of 6.65+400M, beat estimates of 6.57B. So strong guidance
• Strong results. Said their technologies for chips underpin the major secular shifts we are seeing in AI, IOT, EV and Clean energy

COMPANY SPECIFIC:

• Crypto stocks slightly higher as BTC up 1.5% to 66,500.
• COIN -price target raised to 217 from 110 by BoA
• BABA continues higher. Was up a lot as Michael Burry increased his stake in the company
• UAL - Wolfe Research raises to outperform from peer perform
• ARRY - Wells Fargo cuts price target to 14 from 16, still way above current price of 11.34, buy rating maintained
• Nio - China FAW to join Nio battery swap alliance
• SNOW - in talks to acquire AI startup Reka AI for over $1B. Was valued at 300M last June.
• RDDT - OPenAI will integrate Reddit content into ChatGPT and other products. OpenAI will become a reddit advertiser too.
• AMD - Wolfe Research replaced NVDA with AMD on its Wolfe Alpha List.
• AMD - Mcirsofot offers cloud cusomters amd alternative to NVDA AI processors.
• AVGO - say they expect AI chips to account for 35% of semiconductor evneues in 2024, up from 15% in 2023.
• XPEV - aims to deliver their first flying car in 2026, will start taking pre orders this year.
• HSBC down 3% amid reports that shareholder Ping An is looking to trim its stake.
• AMGN - FDA approves Amgen’s treatment for the most deadly form of lung cancer.
• Canada goose - jumps 16% after they reported growth surge in China.
• GS - looks to expand private equity credit lines as dealmaking picks up.
• DXC down on earnings after issuing weak outlook, forecasting revenue to decelerate and is forecasting financial challenges
• TTWO down on earnigns after cutting bookings forecast for Fy 2025. announced a fall 2025 release date for its highly anticipated GTA VI video game
• Li down as is hit with class lawsuit over Li Mega debacle
• STLA - gets buy rating from Piper Sandler

OTHER NEWS:

• CHINA PROPERTY RESCUE PACKAGE.
• China announced multiple measures from PBOC to support Housing market: set up 300B Yuan resending scheme for public housing. Removed mortgage rate floor for individual home buyers. Minimum down payment reduced to 15% for first time.
• THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO BUY HOUSES.
• Bostic yesterday said that he is pleased with inflation progress in April, but the Fed isn’t there yet. Said he doesnt see a recession, and said that lower shelter inflation in recent print was the most significant development for him. Said it will be appropriate for rate cuts later this year, but nothing locked in.
• DOJ yesterday, planned to issue notice of proposed rule making, to reclassify marijuana into a less restrictive category, from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.
• Luxury brand Richemont, which owns Cartier, posts record full year sales and new CEO
• ECB’s Schnabel says that there is little chance of back to back rate cuts from ECB, even if the first rate cut comes in June.
• Uk’s Jeremy Hunt says that he will cut national insurance in Autumn if he is able to. Says conservatives will cut taxes if they win the election.

For more of my daily content, please join Tradingedge and swingtrading
ANALYSIS:

• CPI update:
• Core CPI came in line with survey, at 0.3%, heading slightly lower in MOM terms vs last month (0.3% vs 0.4% before).
• We can see its a similar scenario as before, with service inflation there, but goods in deflation.
• https://imgur.com/a/3hAiquW
• Significantly, shelter inflation MOM is finally below 0.4%, which was the main headline of the print.
• https://imgur.com/a/GYHD12y
• Following the print, Inflation swaps now price in lower CPI for next month, so traders are more optimistic on inflation to continue lower than they were before, especially as we see oil prices come down this month.
• Market continues to move on the number of rate cuts being priced in for this year. Right now markets continue to price 1 or 2 rate cuts.
• So what does this mean for positioning, as we saw equities push higher?
• Well, as was the case before CPI, we continue to see very bearish positioning on VIX. Traders expect VIX to continue lower, which will increase the liquidity that market makers add. This should support the market higher. nOt much anxiety and fear in the markets.
• Volatility should therefore remain suppressed, for this opex.
• 5300 is the wall to get above, but We see traders buying calls on 5400 now so traders are optimistic in medium term.
• Probably when we look at today, skew is flat, but positioning bullish. We can see choppy day as VIX delta ITM puts are still elevated.
• Sentiment v bullish over next month or more.
• When we look at FX, we see That EURUSD has pared gains, because DXY moved higher. This was mostly because EURUSD had got overbought, and DXY was starting to get short term oversold. When we look at positioning, we see traders still buying calls on 1.09. 1.08 will act as support now.
• GOLD and Silver still see strong positioning, 2400 is wall on Gold. Skew on both gold and silver point higher but seeing low volumes.
• On Oil, traders are looking bullish. The skew points higher, whilst price consolidates. Traders are expecting a bullish breakout soon as seasonal demand tends to pick up in summer. Oil is just currently stuck below 79 on WTI.
• On German market, we see traders still buying calls on 19k but low volumes. Needs v high volume to get to this 19k level. 19k is a massive wall. Today and yesterday, it comes down, but soon it will try to test again. Euro strength will help GER40 go higher.

DATA LEDE:

• China Industrial production YOY came 6.7% up, vs 5.5% expected
• China Retail sales came 2.3% YOY vs 3.8% expected
• So retail sales came weak, industrial production was strong
• Unemployment rate in China fell to 5% from 5.2%, back to lowest level since November.
• NOTE: China also announced measures from PBOC to support housing market.
  
• Final revision to inflation rate in Eurozone came in in line with preliminary readings. No change.
  
• US leading index comes out later, after market opens. Expected to show deteriorating leading economic indicators
  

MARKETS:

• SPX: Following CPI, we saw markets push from 5246, to close above 5300. Yesterday, we aw market reach 5325, partly as result of softer jobless numbers, which points to more rate cuts, before sell off lower below 5300. Now at 5295. 5300 will be resistance again that it will try to break above.
• Nasdaq: Before CPI was at 18,310 just below resistance, pushed higher to reach 18,650, before coming lower again to 18,555. 18600 is a resistance, before 19k as the key resistance.
• Dow: was trading at 39600 before CPI, pushed higher to 40k. Got rejected below 40k. 40k is key resistance to get above.
• GER40: Pushed higher with US markets to 18,910, close to the key 19k resistance which is v strong, before paring gains back to 18,662.
• UK100 just been flat amongst the highs at 8400-8450
• China50 higher with lower unemployment rate and higher industrial production, trading up by 1.5% to 12,850. Main resistance now is going to be 13k. China also announced measures to support housing market.
• HKG50: Trading at 19,500. Key resistance is 20k.
• OIL: still trading flat, skew pointing higher.
• GOLD trading higher after CPI, bounced close to 2400.
• Price of Copper surges to new highs.

FX:

• EURUSD hit 1.09 yesterday, before coming down back to 1.084 now. 1.09 was the wall.
• GBPUSD hit 1.27, before coming down to 1.265 now.
• USDJPY fell from 156 to 153.5, before recovering higher to 156 again now.
• AUDUSD moved higher above 0.67 before paring the gains.
• The paring of gains came as DXY fell to almost 104, before pushing higher from there to 104.8.

MAG7:

• NVDA lower in premarket as Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA. Theyre offering their cloud customers AMD AI processors as an alternative to NVDA.
• TSLA - raised price of Model 3 performance for 2nd time in US by $1k, bringing it to $54,990. Increased price fo white interior for model 3 by $500, now priced at $2000.
• META - starting to test a Tweetdeck like experience for threads.
• NFLX - adds more buy side partners to its budding advertising business. Includes TTD, which had been MSFT’s role exclusively up until this point. GOOGL also added to programmatic partners for advertisers.
• MSFT - EU demands clarity from Microsoft on AI risks in bing.
• MSFT - As mentioned, Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA.

EARNINGS:
AMAT:

• EPS of 2.09 was up 5% YOY, beat estimates of 1.99
• Revenue of 6.65B was flat YOY, beat estimates of 6.52B
• Semiconductor systems revenue, their main segment was 4.9B, beating estimates of 4.8B
• Q3 Guidance:
• Sees adjusted EPS of 1.83-2.19 (vs estimate of 1.83). So ahead of expectations
• Revenue of 6.65+400M, beat estimates of 6.57B. So strong guidance
• Strong results. Said their technologies for chips underpin the major secular shifts we are seeing in AI, IOT, EV and Clean energy

COMPANY SPECIFIC:

• Crypto stocks slightly higher as BTC up 1.5% to 66,500.
• COIN -price target raised to 217 from 110 by BoA
• BABA continues higher. Was up a lot as Michael Burry increased his stake in the company
• UAL - Wolfe Research raises to outperform from peer perform
• ARRY - Wells Fargo cuts price target to 14 from 16, still way above current price of 11.34, buy rating maintained
• Nio - China FAW to join Nio battery swap alliance
• SNOW - in talks to acquire AI startup Reka AI for over $1B. Was valued at 300M last June.
• RDDT - OPenAI will integrate Reddit content into ChatGPT and other products. OpenAI will become a reddit advertiser too.
• AMD - Wolfe Research replaced NVDA with AMD on its Wolfe Alpha List.
• AMD - Mcirsofot offers cloud cusomters amd alternative to NVDA AI processors.
• AVGO - say they expect AI chips to account for 35% of semiconductor evneues in 2024, up from 15% in 2023.
• XPEV - aims to deliver their first flying car in 2026, will start taking pre orders this year.
• HSBC down 3% amid reports that shareholder Ping An is looking to trim its stake.
• AMGN - FDA approves Amgen’s treatment for the most deadly form of lung cancer.
• Canada goose - jumps 16% after they reported growth surge in China.
• GS - looks to expand private equity credit lines as dealmaking picks up.
• DXC down on earnings after issuing weak outlook, forecasting revenue to decelerate and is forecasting financial challenges
• TTWO down on earnigns after cutting bookings forecast for Fy 2025. announced a fall 2025 release date for its highly anticipated GTA VI video game
• Li down as is hit with class lawsuit over Li Mega debacle
• STLA - gets buy rating from Piper Sandler

OTHER NEWS:

• CHINA PROPERTY RESCUE PACKAGE.
• China announced multiple measures from PBOC to support Housing market: set up 300B Yuan resending scheme for public housing. Removed mortgage rate floor for individual home buyers. Minimum down payment reduced to 15% for first time.
• THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO BUY HOUSES.
• Bostic yesterday said that he is pleased with inflation progress in April, but the Fed isn’t there yet. Said he doesnt see a recession, and said that lower shelter inflation in recent print was the most significant development for him. Said it will be appropriate for rate cuts later this year, but nothing locked in.
• DOJ yesterday, planned to issue notice of proposed rule making, to reclassify marijuana into a less restrictive category, from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.
• Luxury brand Richemont, which owns Cartier, posts record full year sales and new CEO
• ECB’s Schnabel says that there is little chance of back to back rate cuts from ECB, even if the first rate cut comes in June.
• Uk’s Jeremy Hunt says that he will cut national insurance in Autumnn if he is able to. Says conservatives will cut taxes if they win the election.

For more of my daily content, please join Tradingedge

For more of my daily content, please join Tradingedge
ANALYSIS:

• CPI update:
• Core CPI came in line with survey, at 0.3%, heading slightly lower in MOM terms vs last month (0.3% vs 0.4% before).
• We can see its a similar scenario as before, with service inflation there, but goods in deflation.
• https://imgur.com/a/3hAiquW
• Significantly, shelter inflation MOM is finally below 0.4%, which was the main headline of the print.
• https://imgur.com/a/GYHD12y
• Following the print, Inflation swaps now price in lower CPI for next month, so traders are more optimistic on inflation to continue lower than they were before, especially as we see oil prices come down this month.
• Market continues to move on the number of rate cuts being priced in for this year. Right now markets continue to price 1 or 2 rate cuts.
• So what does this mean for positioning, as we saw equities push higher?
• Well, as was the case before CPI, we continue to see very bearish positioning on VIX. Traders expect VIX to continue lower, which will increase the liquidity that market makers add. This should support the market higher. nOt much anxiety and fear in the markets.
• Volatility should therefore remain suppressed, for this opex.
• 5300 is the wall to get above, but We see traders buying calls on 5400 now so traders are optimistic in medium term.
• Probably when we look at today, skew is flat, but positioning bullish. We can see choppy day as VIX delta ITM puts are still elevated.
• Sentiment v bullish over next month or more.
• When we look at FX, we see That EURUSD has pared gains, because DXY moved higher. This was mostly because EURUSD had got overbought, and DXY was starting to get short term oversold. When we look at positioning, we see traders still buying calls on 1.09. 1.08 will act as support now.
• GOLD and Silver still see strong positioning, 2400 is wall on Gold. Skew on both gold and silver point higher but seeing low volumes.
• On Oil, traders are looking bullish. The skew points higher, whilst price consolidates. Traders are expecting a bullish breakout soon as seasonal demand tends to pick up in summer. Oil is just currently stuck below 79 on WTI.
• On German market, we see traders still buying calls on 19k but low volumes. Needs v high volume to get to this 19k level. 19k is a massive wall. Today and yesterday, it comes down, but soon it will try to test again. Euro strength will help GER40 go higher.

DATA LEDE:

• China Industrial production YOY came 6.7% up, vs 5.5% expected
• China Retail sales came 2.3% YOY vs 3.8% expected
• So retail sales came weak, industrial production was strong
• Unemployment rate in China fell to 5% from 5.2%, back to lowest level since November.
• NOTE: China also announced measures from PBOC to support housing market.
  
• Final revision to inflation rate in Eurozone came in in line with preliminary readings. No change.
  
• US leading index comes out later, after market opens. Expected to show deteriorating leading economic indicators
  

MARKETS:

• SPX: Following CPI, we saw markets push from 5246, to close above 5300. Yesterday, we aw market reach 5325, partly as result of softer jobless numbers, which points to more rate cuts, before sell off lower below 5300. Now at 5295. 5300 will be resistance again that it will try to break above.
• Nasdaq: Before CPI was at 18,310 just below resistance, pushed higher to reach 18,650, before coming lower again to 18,555. 18600 is a resistance, before 19k as the key resistance.
• Dow: was trading at 39600 before CPI, pushed higher to 40k. Got rejected below 40k. 40k is key resistance to get above.
• GER40: Pushed higher with US markets to 18,910, close to the key 19k resistance which is v strong, before paring gains back to 18,662.
• UK100 just been flat amongst the highs at 8400-8450
• China50 higher with lower unemployment rate and higher industrial production, trading up by 1.5% to 12,850. Main resistance now is going to be 13k. China also announced measures to support housing market.
• HKG50: Trading at 19,500. Key resistance is 20k.
• OIL: still trading flat, skew pointing higher.
• GOLD trading higher after CPI, bounced close to 2400.
• Price of Copper surges to new highs.

FX:

• EURUSD hit 1.09 yesterday, before coming down back to 1.084 now. 1.09 was the wall.
• GBPUSD hit 1.27, before coming down to 1.265 now.
• USDJPY fell from 156 to 153.5, before recovering higher to 156 again now.
• AUDUSD moved higher above 0.67 before paring the gains.
• The paring of gains came as DXY fell to almost 104, before pushing higher from there to 104.8.

MAG7:

• NVDA lower in premarket as Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA. Theyre offering their cloud customers AMD AI processors as an alternative to NVDA.
• TSLA - raised price of Model 3 performance for 2nd time in US by $1k, bringing it to $54,990. Increased price fo white interior for model 3 by $500, now priced at $2000.
• META - starting to test a Tweetdeck like experience for threads.
• NFLX - adds more buy side partners to its budding advertising business. Includes TTD, which had been MSFT’s role exclusively up until this point. GOOGL also added to programmatic partners for advertisers.
• MSFT - EU demands clarity from Microsoft on AI risks in bing.
• MSFT - As mentioned, Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA.

EARNINGS:
AMAT:

• EPS of 2.09 was up 5% YOY, beat estimates of 1.99
• Revenue of 6.65B was flat YOY, beat estimates of 6.52B
• Semiconductor systems revenue, their main segment was 4.9B, beating estimates of 4.8B
• Q3 Guidance:
• Sees adjusted EPS of 1.83-2.19 (vs estimate of 1.83). So ahead of expectations
• Revenue of 6.65+400M, beat estimates of 6.57B. So strong guidance
• Strong results. Said their technologies for chips underpin the major secular shifts we are seeing in AI, IOT, EV and Clean energy

COMPANY SPECIFIC:

• Crypto stocks slightly higher as BTC up 1.5% to 66,500.
• COIN -price target raised to 217 from 110 by BoA
• BABA continues higher. Was up a lot as Michael Burry increased his stake in the company
• UAL - Wolfe Research raises to outperform from peer perform
• ARRY - Wells Fargo cuts price target to 14 from 16, still way above current price of 11.34, buy rating maintained
• Nio - China FAW to join Nio battery swap alliance
• SNOW - in talks to acquire AI startup Reka AI for over $1B. Was valued at 300M last June.
• RDDT - OPenAI will integrate Reddit content into ChatGPT and other products. OpenAI will become a reddit advertiser too.
• AMD - Wolfe Research replaced NVDA with AMD on its Wolfe Alpha List.
• AMD - Mcirsofot offers cloud cusomters amd alternative to NVDA AI processors.
• AVGO - say they expect AI chips to account for 35% of semiconductor evneues in 2024, up from 15% in 2023.
• XPEV - aims to deliver their first flying car in 2026, will start taking pre orders this year.
• HSBC down 3% amid reports that shareholder Ping An is looking to trim its stake.
• AMGN - FDA approves Amgen’s treatment for the most deadly form of lung cancer.
• Canada goose - jumps 16% after they reported growth surge in China.
• GS - looks to expand private equity credit lines as dealmaking picks up.
• DXC down on earnings after issuing weak outlook, forecasting revenue to decelerate and is forecasting financial challenges
• TTWO down on earnigns after cutting bookings forecast for Fy 2025. announced a fall 2025 release date for its highly anticipated GTA VI video game
• Li down as is hit with class lawsuit over Li Mega debacle
• STLA - gets buy rating from Piper Sandler

OTHER NEWS:

• CHINA PROPERTY RESCUE PACKAGE.
• China announced multiple measures from PBOC to support Housing market: set up 300B Yuan resending scheme for public housing. Removed mortgage rate floor for individual home buyers. Minimum down payment reduced to 15% for first time.
• THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO BUY HOUSES.
• Bostic yesterday said that he is pleased with inflation progress in April, but the Fed isn’t there yet. Said he doesnt see a recession, and said that lower shelter inflation in recent print was the most significant development for him. Said it will be appropriate for rate cuts later this year, but nothing locked in.
• DOJ yesterday, planned to issue notice of proposed rule making, to reclassify marijuana into a less restrictive category, from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.
• Luxury brand Richemont, which owns Cartier, posts record full year sales and new CEO
• ECB’s Schnabel says that there is little chance of back to back rate cuts from ECB, even if the first rate cut comes in June.
• Uk’s Jeremy Hunt says that he will cut national insurance in Autumnn if he is able to. Says conservatives will cut taxes if they win the election.

For more of my daily content, please join Tradingedge

For more of my daily content, please join Tradingedge
ANALYSIS:

• CPI update:
• Core CPI came in line with survey, at 0.3%, heading slightly lower in MOM terms vs last month (0.3% vs 0.4% before).
• We can see its a similar scenario as before, with service inflation there, but goods in deflation.
• https://imgur.com/a/3hAiquW
• Significantly, shelter inflation MOM is finally below 0.4%, which was the main headline of the print.
• https://imgur.com/a/GYHD12y
• Following the print, Inflation swaps now price in lower CPI for next month, so traders are more optimistic on inflation to continue lower than they were before, especially as we see oil prices come down this month.
• Market continues to move on the number of rate cuts being priced in for this year. Right now markets continue to price 1 or 2 rate cuts.
• So what does this mean for positioning, as we saw equities push higher?
• Well, as was the case before CPI, we continue to see very bearish positioning on VIX. Traders expect VIX to continue lower, which will increase the liquidity that market makers add. This should support the market higher. nOt much anxiety and fear in the markets.
• Volatility should therefore remain suppressed, for this opex.
• 5300 is the wall to get above, but We see traders buying calls on 5400 now so traders are optimistic in medium term.
• Probably when we look at today, skew is flat, but positioning bullish. We can see choppy day as VIX delta ITM puts are still elevated.
• Sentiment v bullish over next month or more.
• When we look at FX, we see That EURUSD has pared gains, because DXY moved higher. This was mostly because EURUSD had got overbought, and DXY was starting to get short term oversold. When we look at positioning, we see traders still buying calls on 1.09. 1.08 will act as support now.
• GOLD and Silver still see strong positioning, 2400 is wall on Gold. Skew on both gold and silver point higher but seeing low volumes.
• On Oil, traders are looking bullish. The skew points higher, whilst price consolidates. Traders are expecting a bullish breakout soon as seasonal demand tends to pick up in summer. Oil is just currently stuck below 79 on WTI.
• On German market, we see traders still buying calls on 19k but low volumes. Needs v high volume to get to this 19k level. 19k is a massive wall. Today and yesterday, it comes down, but soon it will try to test again. Euro strength will help GER40 go higher.

DATA LEDE:

• China Industrial production YOY came 6.7% up, vs 5.5% expected
• China Retail sales came 2.3% YOY vs 3.8% expected
• So retail sales came weak, industrial production was strong
• Unemployment rate in China fell to 5% from 5.2%, back to lowest level since November.
• NOTE: China also announced measures from PBOC to support housing market.
  
• Final revision to inflation rate in Eurozone came in in line with preliminary readings. No change.
  
• US leading index comes out later, after market opens. Expected to show deteriorating leading economic indicators
  

MARKETS:

• SPX: Following CPI, we saw markets push from 5246, to close above 5300. Yesterday, we aw market reach 5325, partly as result of softer jobless numbers, which points to more rate cuts, before sell off lower below 5300. Now at 5295. 5300 will be resistance again that it will try to break above.
• Nasdaq: Before CPI was at 18,310 just below resistance, pushed higher to reach 18,650, before coming lower again to 18,555. 18600 is a resistance, before 19k as the key resistance.
• Dow: was trading at 39600 before CPI, pushed higher to 40k. Got rejected below 40k. 40k is key resistance to get above.
• GER40: Pushed higher with US markets to 18,910, close to the key 19k resistance which is v strong, before paring gains back to 18,662.
• UK100 just been flat amongst the highs at 8400-8450
• China50 higher with lower unemployment rate and higher industrial production, trading up by 1.5% to 12,850. Main resistance now is going to be 13k. China also announced measures to support housing market.
• HKG50: Trading at 19,500. Key resistance is 20k.
• OIL: still trading flat, skew pointing higher.
• GOLD trading higher after CPI, bounced close to 2400.
• Price of Copper surges to new highs.

FX:

• EURUSD hit 1.09 yesterday, before coming down back to 1.084 now. 1.09 was the wall.
• GBPUSD hit 1.27, before coming down to 1.265 now.
• USDJPY fell from 156 to 153.5, before recovering higher to 156 again now.
• AUDUSD moved higher above 0.67 before paring the gains.
• The paring of gains came as DXY fell to almost 104, before pushing higher from there to 104.8.

MAG7:

• NVDA lower in premarket as Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA. Theyre offering their cloud customers AMD AI processors as an alternative to NVDA.
• TSLA - raised price of Model 3 performance for 2nd time in US by $1k, bringing it to $54,990. Increased price fo white interior for model 3 by $500, now priced at $2000.
• META - starting to test a Tweetdeck like experience for threads.
• NFLX - adds more buy side partners to its budding advertising business. Includes TTD, which had been MSFT’s role exclusively up until this point. GOOGL also added to programmatic partners for advertisers.
• MSFT - EU demands clarity from Microsoft on AI risks in bing.
• MSFT - As mentioned, Microsoft unveils AMD powered AI chips to rival NVDA.

EARNINGS:
AMAT:

• EPS of 2.09 was up 5% YOY, beat estimates of 1.99
• Revenue of 6.65B was flat YOY, beat estimates of 6.52B
• Semiconductor systems revenue, their main segment was 4.9B, beating estimates of 4.8B
• Q3 Guidance:
• Sees adjusted EPS of 1.83-2.19 (vs estimate of 1.83). So ahead of expectations
• Revenue of 6.65+400M, beat estimates of 6.57B. So strong guidance
• Strong results. Said their technologies for chips underpin the major secular shifts we are seeing in AI, IOT, EV and Clean energy

COMPANY SPECIFIC:

• Crypto stocks slightly higher as BTC up 1.5% to 66,500.
• COIN -price target raised to 217 from 110 by BoA
• BABA continues higher. Was up a lot as Michael Burry increased his stake in the company
• UAL - Wolfe Research raises to outperform from peer perform
• ARRY - Wells Fargo cuts price target to 14 from 16, still way above current price of 11.34, buy rating maintained
• Nio - China FAW to join Nio battery swap alliance
• SNOW - in talks to acquire AI startup Reka AI for over $1B. Was valued at 300M last June.
• RDDT - OPenAI will integrate Reddit content into ChatGPT and other products. OpenAI will become a reddit advertiser too.
• AMD - Wolfe Research replaced NVDA with AMD on its Wolfe Alpha List.
• AMD - Mcirsofot offers cloud cusomters amd alternative to NVDA AI processors.
• AVGO - say they expect AI chips to account for 35% of semiconductor evneues in 2024, up from 15% in 2023.
• XPEV - aims to deliver their first flying car in 2026, will start taking pre orders this year.
• HSBC down 3% amid reports that shareholder Ping An is looking to trim its stake.
• AMGN - FDA approves Amgen’s treatment for the most deadly form of lung cancer.
• Canada goose - jumps 16% after they reported growth surge in China.
• GS - looks to expand private equity credit lines as dealmaking picks up.
• DXC down on earnings after issuing weak outlook, forecasting revenue to decelerate and is forecasting financial challenges
• TTWO down on earnigns after cutting bookings forecast for Fy 2025. announced a fall 2025 release date for its highly anticipated GTA VI video game
• Li down as is hit with class lawsuit over Li Mega debacle
• STLA - gets buy rating from Piper Sandler

OTHER NEWS:

• CHINA PROPERTY RESCUE PACKAGE.
• China announced multiple measures from PBOC to support Housing market: set up 300B Yuan resending scheme for public housing. Removed mortgage rate floor for individual home buyers. Minimum down payment reduced to 15% for first time.
• THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO BUY HOUSES.
• Bostic yesterday said that he is pleased with inflation progress in April, but the Fed isn’t there yet. Said he doesnt see a recession, and said that lower shelter inflation in recent print was the most significant development for him. Said it will be appropriate for rate cuts later this year, but nothing locked in.
• DOJ yesterday, planned to issue notice of proposed rule making, to reclassify marijuana into a less restrictive category, from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3.
• Luxury brand Richemont, which owns Cartier, posts record full year sales and new CEO
• ECB’s Schnabel says that there is little chance of back to back rate cuts from ECB, even if the first rate cut comes in June.
• Uk’s Jeremy Hunt says that he will cut national insurance in Autumnn if he is able to. Says conservatives will cut taxes if they win the election.

For more of my daily content, please join Tradingedge

Your enthusiasm has been incredible. Please join us for the upcoming 4th Twitch Drops event to win exclusive beta access to Arena Breakout: Infinite.
Event Start Time: May 18, 2024 0:00 UTC+0
Event page: https://www.arenabreakoutinfinite.com/twitchdrops/en
Key Distribution: Limited number (50K) of beta access qualifications will be distributed, and the event will close once they are fully claimed
How to Participate:
Link your accounts on the event page.
Watch 60 minutes of “Arena Breakout: Infinite” content with Twitch Drops enabled (there will be a popup in the chat when you start watching)
Then claim a unique Key on the Twitch Drops event page. https://www.arenabreakoutinfinite.com/twitchdrops/en/#link
Download the game and await account activation.
Access is granted within one working day.
Important Note:
The Non-Steam Key, like the Steam keys, serves as a voucher for beta access eligibility. Please note that keys obtained from Twitch Drops do not need to be activated by the user. Once you obtain a Steam or Non-Steam key from the Twitch Drops event, it is automatically tied to your linked Level Infinite Pass account and will be activated automatically within one business day. No further action is required on your part; simply be patient and wait for us to grant your beta access. If any issues occur please follow the steps in the previous announcement.
Please remember that each player can only claim the beta access reward from Twitch Drops once. If you have already completed the drops task during the previous round event, you will be able to claim the Key directly on the event page. If you have not completed the task, your progress will be reset in the round 4 event.
FAQ
Limited beta keys available! Don’t miss out—once they’re gone, they’re gone. Dive into the beta and see you in Kamona!

As always, thank you to u/SpacePaladin15 for the wonderful universe that is NoP! Thank you to u/cruisingNW for proof reading and helping me make this chapter as good as it can be, you're the man! Honestly LoM wouldn't have gone very far without him! If you haven't you should absolutely go read Foundations of Humanity! It's very good AND it just updated!
A big thanks to u/Saint-Andros for helping with proofreading! He writes Out of Our Elements which is a very good one! If you like a good fic in the wilderness and a pair of cute 'friends' ;) you'll love OOE!
Also thank you to u/brotanics! For this wonderful fanart of Taisa. And this one! She's so cute I'm gonna die
And thank you to u/Jimdandy117! For this adorable fanart of Chris and Renkel! Dear god help he's adorable I love him so much
Thank you u/SlimyRage, or AsciiSquid on Discord, for makin' Vengineer Taisa Gamin'. She's absolutely adorable, I love her lil' workers apron. She looks so excited to get to work!
Thank you u/Braquen! For this astounding Pixel Art of Taisa after a few range day dates with Chris! Her little hat and gunbelt are absolutely astounding!
Thank you u/VeryUnluckyDice! For this Artwork of Taisa and Chris as characters from One Piece! I've never seen or read it before but it's incredibly cute!
Thank you to u/creditmission for their wonderful work of several LoM fanfics!
First Prev. Next
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Memory Transcription Subject: Taisa, Venlil Starship Engineer, Crystal Star Shipping Co-Owner
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 16th, 2136
Stars… doom or not, that moon is beautiful.
Earth’s own spotlight still hung in the sky, creeping ever higher backlight more and more of the fleet waiting in anticipation. The moon’s pure white light scattered aimlessly across the mountains, shimmering like liquid silver on the surface of the river flowing through the valley far below us. Slinking dark forms of ships that slipped beyond her light made their presence known through the trailing wisps their ion thrusters jetted out behind them; painting the soil-black sky with twisting, swirling hues of blue amongst the shimmering stars.
A warm and weighty hand pulled me close as the cool night air of the mountains flowed through my wool, coaxing a contended purr to build and blossom in my chest as I pressed into Chris’ side, stretching up to nuzzle into his neck before leaning forward and snatching another ‘hummus’ covered carrot from the tray to pop it into my mouth. The delicious, savory smoothness of the hummus accompanied the sweet harshness of the carrot perfectly, sending a trill of pleasure through my chest before I continued my story.
“Anyhow, Quilleth and I, despite her continuous protests, get assigned to the same design herd for one of our final projects. We had an old Triconn Drive Systems TC-547 Jump drive and one of their ‘standard’ fusion cores to go with it, one of the worst pairs of speh-stacks ever built if you ask me, that we needed to rebuild and get working again, and she wanted no part of having to ‘deal’ with me for any extended period of time. Tavareth, my jump-drive maintenance and design professor, was adamant that,” I stopped, pulling in a breath and puffing out my chest, doing my best to mimic the old, gray trunked Mazic. “Ahem, ‘In a work environment you’ll have to work past your differences to make the herd stronger.’ and all kinds of other speh that amounted to ‘I need to fill out this herd the rest of the way and you two are who’s left.’”
“They both sound so pleasant.” Chris rumbled, a chuckle in his voice as he grinned, handing me another of his ‘cracker sandwiches’ before turning his eyes back to the stars high above.
“That’s a word for it.” I agreed, giving a jovial whistle past the crumbling cracker and deliciously smooth nut-spread. “But she dropped that tune real fast the second we came up to a real problem in the project trying to source a new, or at least rebuildable, primary magnetic accelerator. I called Parnel and had a brand new one, that was well past any spec we were expected to meet, in our workshop and installed within the paw. After that I checked the drive’s Tritium levels, rerouted every coolant line, field flow point and magnetic induction coil so they actually worked right, stars forbid those wool brains at Triconn ever design something right the first time, to get everything I could out of the new accelerator assembly.”
“Now why does that sound familiar?” Chris mused, a sly smile on his face as scooped a fistful of crunchy chips into his mouth.
“You can shush Captain ‘try his damnedest to burn out every subsystem he can find’, half the re-routing I have to do now is your fault!” I replied with an amused whistle, paffing the back of his head with my tail-tuft before continuing. “Now, after I’d… dove into the ove-”
“As you often do.” Chris cut in, a smile on his face as he prodded my side with a burbling laugh in his voice.
“Shush!” I bleated in return, the warmth of a spreading bloom driving the sneaking cold of the mountain air from my wool. “As I was saying, after I dove into the drive, Quilleth and our other partners, mostly Quilleth, had taken it on themselves to handle the core’s overhaul and refueling. Leave it to most herds to take the easy route and not learn something if they can get away with it, you can damn well bet they made sure to document that I was the one who worked on the drive and that the, far easier, core was all them. The work on the drive took a while by myself but I still managed to get everything done and put together before we had to spin it up for the test-paw.”
“How do you test a drive and a core if it's not on a ship? Feels like a fast way to make a problem for yourself.” Chris asked, his eyes focused on me, interest plain on his face as his hand wrapped around my side to pull me close.
“Well the drives physically can’t engage if they’re in a sufficient gravity well, and VP is well beyond that threshold, so we just spin them up, take readings to ‘prove’ that they’d work in a real application. I argued we should have had a few shuttles with remote diagnostics and control systems, like we used during your flight training, to do the tests to show they actually did work since correct readings in a gravity well and correct readings in applied use can be different and you wouldn’t know until you were in orbit and getting ready to jump. Tavareth said he’d have ‘loved to give us the chance but the university didn’t have the funds to allocate’ or some other excuse the faculty always used to avoid doing things the right way.” I replied, waving my paws in frustration at the amount of projects that were only given a curled tail of thought before being dumped on us to complete, real world applications or not.
“Sounds a lot like Trepassy’s parent company, unless it was a ‘mission critical component’ as they put it, then they didn’t much care to fix it if it didn’t keep her stuck in port. Always made the excuse that the repairs weren’t in the budget while posting ten plus percent margins. Didn’t matter how much me and the cap’ called and bitched them out for busted Air-con or the rec-room being entirely bare they always said the same damned thing. Bunch of assholes.”
My tail set to wagging at the idea of Chris and his captain shouting into a phone at some other Human half the world away about something that felt all too familiar. “Anyways, we get everything set up on the testing field outside of Dayside, get the systems mounted into their cooling and fuel channels before we start spooling the core up and putting power to the drive. Before too long Tavareth announces that everything looks stable and we can begin putting load onto the system, everything climbs their scales well. The warp field levels off with the expected fluctuations of a drive being operated way too far into a gravity well to maintain any real stability and the core temperature looks good. Everything’s holding steady, Tavareth looks pleased, the rest of my project-herd is congratulating each other on a project completed.”
“Then the core temp starts climbing, blooming well beyond any ‘acceptable’ overheating limiter Quilleth, Uderek or Ofent could have seen fit to set. I looked over and found all three of them watching the core start to melt down in disbelief as Tavereth slams down every single E-stop he can find on the command console. Suddenly everything stops, the room goes quiet as the distant, now glowing white core is dumped straight into an abort tank to expend its… energy somewhere a bit safer. ”
“Tavereth whipped around faster than I’d ever seen that big old Mazic move and oh stars was he furious!” I bleated, tossing my paws in the air at the memory of him studying each of us in turn before launching into an angry tirade. “That core was as bright as the stars themselves but it had nothing on the bloom positively glowing beneath Quilleth’s coat! He laid into all of us for a solid five minutes, calling out everything that could have gone wrong under Sollaglick’s light and I didn’t say a thing until she tried to blame me for forgetting to install the limiters!”
I saw the corner of Chris’ mouth curl in a tight smile, he knew what was coming but it still felt so good to be able to revel in it with my own herd, pack or whatever we should have been called. “Then I threw her own write up right back at her! Pointed out every note that explicitly called out that I only worked on the drive and that the core was all them, more specifically that SHE was supposed to have installed the limiters almost a herd before according to their schedule!”
“Uderek, Ofent and I all got a stern warning about why you should always check your herd-mates’ work and I got a gruff ‘good work’ for the drive before Tavereth positively berated Quilleth for the next quarter claw! Those two were good to me for the tail end of the semester, I’d hoped they’d try to keep in touch after we went our separate ways but… well they really didn’t.” I sighed with a shrug, the sun falling from my field at the memory of the last time I’d seen the chipper Gojid and our Tilfish friend.
“Well, hopefully things are going good for them, sometimes folks get busy… maybe they figure they don’t wanna bother you! ‘Specially now that you got your own ship and whatnot!” Chris comforted, his hands tracing wonderfully comforting circles through my wool.
Could always try to get in contact again if we make it through this.
>Agreed.< “Maybe I should, would be nice to have even more paws onto look at any of the problems Darno and I can’t… Stars above what is that?!”
My breath hitched in my throat as I looked to the stars, watching as the fleets high above began to exchange zipping tails of blue and green. A horrid, deadly light show filled the void high above earth, ships on both sides taking and serving hits with the fervor only people fighting for their lives, and the lives of everyone they’d ever known, could truly muster. The blazing trails of plasma slammed into the distant motes, scattering their vibrant colors in globs across the tapestry of the stars before some of them were joined by the flash of critical reactors and munition blowouts.
But amongst it all that wasn’t even the most of it.
For a brief moment I had thought the U.N. had decided to throw their entire moon at the fleet, another break-tail juke to smash as much of the fleet as they could; but the vectors were all wrong. They weren’t propelling here, they were taking off from her. The light of the moon was ablaze, obscured with towering pillars of smoke and fire, cacophonous trails of burnt oxygen and hydrogen traced a stampede directly to the extermination fleet. No, what they had actually chosen to do was far worse.
They’d stowed what looked like a never ending salvo of gargantuan missiles waiting for the exact moment to drop everything they had on the extermination fleet. A thought crossed my mind, a display from some stars-forsaken exhibit in the capital’s museum called ‘true evil’, its content was positively laughable now, about how many atomics humanity had made before they’d ’annihilated’ themselves. I think the curator had harvested the numbers a shear or two short. The sky lit up like a battery of strobes, the constant cracking light of splitting atoms nearly turning night to day as they spread like a blight through the assaulting fleet.
I couldn’t help but pull my lips back in a smile as my tail thumped rapidly against the stone beneath me. That mote of hope in my chest grew, watching the burning hulks full of people who wanted nothing more than to destroy everything about this world I’d come to love break apart, venting atmosphere as they sat, hanging in the void. Some tried to turn tail and limp away, some slipped into Earth’s gravity, their battered hull sections turning to voracious fireballs as they plummeted toward the hard, unforgiving dirt below.
Should’ve stayed home.
The thunk and twang of Chris’ instrument slipping from its case harvested my attention, my eyes sliding from the battle high above to the glowing white instrument resting in his hands. His own eyes turned to the sky, hovering for a moment as he plucked a few discordant notes from the instrument before looking back down and over to me, meeting my gaze.
“‘Suppose now’s as good a time as any.” He shrugged, giving me a small smile as I nodded, wrapping my tail around his wrist before gently nuzzling into his neck and turning my eyes back to the battle.
The sharp, plucky, barking twang of the banjo called out across the mountain tops, echoing back to us like a distant friend as Chris’ voice filled the air, joining the banjo in its reprise. The slow, wavering song danced between us just as the violence for the stars above, weaving amongs the whispering chorus of the trees and the chattering, throaty backing of evening insects.
“But I want to be where all the stupid shit I say Sounds so romantic and true.
Cause I'd rot in hell with you,
If you'd just ask me to.
I love the shitty things we do together,
Live with me in this sin forever.”
Memories flooded my mind with the words and hanging notes that echoed across the valley before us. The panic of our first solo flight as Chris pushed Shamrock for everything she’d had to give us, trying desperately to keep her in one piece as he blew past every limiter to get Maeve to the hospital as fast as we could. Concern roiling in my chest as I helped him to the truck after he’d dove into the river after, soaked to the bone, shivering and frozen but still so proud. The frustration of the two of us hard at work on Polani the paw after we’d gotten her, tail, and elbow, deep in carbon, grease and oil as we cursed everything under the stars. The fear of the cradle as the thunder of shells slamming into Polani’s hull filled her halls, the horror as one stalked me within my home…
“Cause home is the last place that I'd stand to be with anyone but you.
I'd rot in hell with you, If you'd just ask me to.
I love the shitty things we do together, Live with me in this sin forever.
Hell and you, I know you want it too.
I hope you take the shot, see this chance.
Feel the fire, and let me have this dance with you.”
I pressed into his side with a contented sigh, listening to the last echoing twangs of the Banjo and his voice as they called back across the great expanse before us. A long, cool breath filled my lungs before I leaned up to give his cheek a small, loving lick as a purr rolled through my chest. “I love everything we do together too, Love. Almost as much as I love just having you in my life at all.”
His mouth split into that broad, goofy grin as his hand pulled me just a little closer, his heavy voice rolling through me, just as comforting as always. “I love you too, Darlin’.”
“So…” I whistled, my tail twitching back and forth with amusement as I spoke into his neck. “About that dan-”
The words faltered in my mouth as a building light caught my eye, harvesting my attention skyward.
There, seemingly hanging in the sky, a pair of ships were tangled, no speared together. Both of them were burning fuel as munitions explosions wracked their hulls and trailing plumes of wispy atmosphere vented from their hulls as they plummeted to earth together, locked in their own deadly dance. The fires of re-entry blazed across both of their hulls as parts, pods and melted trails of slag broke away from both of them. The rammer’s guns opened up, sending round after round out after the escape pods that had bailed from the other ship, turning scores of them into little more than puffs of smoke that never had a chance.
As the pair grew closer I could finally make out what they were, or at least who the aggressor was. A Federation light cruiser was speared dead in her midship by the unmistakable, sleek curves of a Venlil Destroyer ending in a hextet of thrusters that still belched plumes of burning hydrogen fuel into the sky as she drove her opponent towards the certain death of the mountains below them with everything they had. The screaming roar of the ship reached my ears, their cacophonous echos casting across the mountain range like the angered, belligerent wails of someone defending everything they held dear.
That ship doesn’t have U.N. markings… Stars above that ship… those are Venlil.
“Damn…”
“Stars above…”
Chris and I watched what amounted to a grand, defiant headbutt as it traced its path down from the stars above. The pair of dancing ships continued their descent, pirouetting to the mountains below them like experienced partners just as their arms and thrusters screamed at each other like enemies with a centuries old grudge to settle.
“Shit… they’re comin’ down on Salt Pond.” Chris whispered, his eyes tracking the pair as they plummeted.
Mountains rose into sight beneath them, the distant mountain’s peak rose into the sky like it was anticipation, just hoping for the chance to dash the interloper across its face.
“H-How far is that?”
“‘Bout twenty miles as the crow flies. ‘Least no one lives on that one I think, ‘sides maybe the rangers.”
The fleets far above them were still locked in a furious fight, the monstrous flanks of the federation ships pushed on, crashing through the defenders like a harvester through wool-grass. Ships of both sides fell from their formations, ablaze like the stars around them, only growing brighter before flaring into catastrophic explosions that cast them into incalculable pieces that fell to the ground below like a meteor shower.
“Think they’ll manage?” I whispered, a sprout of fear and doubt managing to push past the stone of hope I’d done my best to embed in my heart.
“I hope so, Darlin’. I ho-“
The cacophonous screech and cavernous boom of metal crashing into stone, trees and dirt filled the air, drowning his voice out and sending birds scattering from the trees around us as the ground beneath us shuddered from the impact.
Then everything went whi-
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SOLUTION: ATTEMPT RECOVERY? Y/N
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ATTEMPT FAILED.
SOLUTION: LOAD NEXT TRANSCRIPT IN QUEUE FOR ‘THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE BLACKSBURG BURNER AND THE SKALGAN SHOWSTOPPER’? Y/N
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SOLUTION ACCEPTED. LOADING NEXT TRANSCRIPT.
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Hey all,
Sorry for the long post but I want to include as much detail as possible. I recognise that I should have thought about the decision more wisely before entering into this, but it all happened very quickly.
I don't live in England, but he is in England. This is all online based.
About 4 weeks ago, I signed up to his personal training programme. He says there is a consultation call where you can discuss everything, then you get meal plans, training plans and his team of personal trainers at your disposal 24/7 through an app.
On the consultation call, he was very rushed, kept cutting me off from talking, using the classic jargon of a influencer pt and seemed to be in such a hurry to close this deal. That should've been my first red flag.
He told me it would be £160 a month and that we would start with 4 months, though he is available for up to 8.
He then sent through an email to make an account and pay the first installment of 160. There was a £100 admin fee on top of this. He hadnt mentioned that. Whilst doing this, he was sending messages and being very pushy and voice notes through WhatsApp. He was very excited, enthusiastic, made it sound fantastic. Bombarded me with so much positivity.
Only once I had paid and set up my account, did he send through the terms and conditions and an email containing more details. These weren't available when i was setting up my account to read beforehand. In there, it states that this is binding for a minimum of 4 months. In the email however it says this:
"We have agreed to start a coaching subscription of 8 months with a commitment of 4 months. The first payment will amount to GBP 260 (including a setup fee of GBP 100) Subsequently you will be charged GBP 160 every month. To cancel your subscription, please email us or contact us via the chat function in the app.
Your subscription will roll until such time a 1 month notice period is given, as per the boring bits (terms and conditions!)."
Since starting with him, he's barely done anything.
He boasts about tailoring the meal and training plans specifically to the individual, but I've told him multiple times about ammendments I'd like changing and he's not done so. When I ask questions, he doesn't really answer them - they're very wishy washy responses and not at all what I'd expect from someone who claims to be an expert in this field. He states that it can take up to 48 hours for him or his team to respond: he pushes this to the absolute max. When he does respond, its again, very wishy washy messages, usually just repeating back to me what I've said in my message with his own spin.
I don't think I'm getting the product I'm paying for, nor was I notified before that I would be in this for 4 months without an option to leave at any time. I think £160 a month is a large amount of money to be paying to someone who has sent me about 4 messages and is (what looks like) just reusing the same meal plan and training plan for everyone - maybe with a few tweaks.
I contacted my bank yesterday, who has blocked the next payment to him - which was their suggestion.
I would like to know what the law says about this, if anything. Can he legally bind me in for 4 months? Do I have to pay the 740 to him or can I stop using his services? Should he provide his terms available before the account is made?
Thanks for any help you can give, I'm very anxious of the conflict that this may cause. If there is anything else you need to know, please ask.