In this morning-market YouTube commentary recorded on May 21, 2026, host Kenny Polcari delivers a rapid-fire briefing covering several high‑impact financial stories and a personal culinary segment. He begins with SpaceX’s S‑1 filing, noting the company’s choice of NASDAQ, the planned June 12 debut under ticker SPCX, a projected $75 billion raise valuing the firm at $1.75 trillion, and the mixed financial picture of $18.6 billion revenue versus a $5 billion loss driven by massive AI‑related capex and a declining ARPU for Starlink. Polcari highlights Elon Musk’s 85 % voting control and outlines bullish (Starlink scale, AI dominance, orbital data centers, $28.5 trillion TAM) and bearish (capital burn, subscriber economics) scenarios. He then shifts to Nvidia’s earnings, where revenue jumped 85 % to $81.6 billion and EPS beat expectations, yet after‑hours trading was flat, suggesting the market has already priced in extraordinary performance. Polcari argues the next investment edge lies in the broader AI ecosystem—networking, memory, data‑center infrastructure, and software layers—rather than Nvidia alone. Next, he recaps macro moves after a Trump statement on Iran: oil fell ~5 % to $98, bonds rallied, yields slipped, and equities surged across indices (Dow +1.3 %, S&P +1.1 %, Nasdaq +1.5 %). He interprets the VIX’s dip to 17.44 as complacency, warns against over‑confidence, and notes gold’s flatness amid mixed inflation and geopolitical signals. He previews today’s economic releases (housing starts, permits, PMI) and mentions European satellite stocks (Eutelsat, OHB, SES) rising on SpaceX news. Polcari then warns of travel disruptions due to a sinkhole at LaGuardia Airport and advises investors to stay disciplined as volumes thin into the Memorial Day weekend. He offers his contact (561‑931‑0190) for portfolio reviews. Finally, he shares a detailed recipe for ground‑chuck short‑rib burgers, including a braised short‑rib preparation, seasoning, grilling, and serving suggestions, framing it as a Memorial Day weekend treat. Overall, the commentary blends market analysis, strategic investment insights, macro‑economic context, personal branding, and lifestyle content.
Chapters
Well, good morning. Yes, it's me, Kenny Polcari, your host of the party. And today is Thursday, May 21st, 2026, and the long weekend is getting even closer. But here are the things that you need to know to get your day started. Well, SpaceX drops the S1 and NASDAQ is the winner. And June 21st is D-Day and that leaves the New York Stock Exchange a bit bruised. Nvidia, Jensen hits it out of the park again, but the markets are not reacting. Stocks and bonds exploded higher yesterday after Trump tells us that we're very, very close. Oil's down, bonds are up, yields are down, gold is unchanged, and the VIX is back in complacency zone. And what do we have for dinner tonight? Well, the weekend is here, so we're gonna have the ground chuck short rib burgers. It's a classic Memorial Day weekend dish. Okay, so good morning, and there's so much to talk about, so let's start with this, right? And liftoff has happened. SpaceX dropped their S-1 last night. NASDAQ is the winner for the listing, leaving the New York Stock Exchange bruised. The roadshow begins on June 4th, pricing on the 11th, and the first day of trading is June 12th under the ticker symbol SPCX. Now, as we know, this will be the biggest IPO in history, looking to raise some $75 billion, giving it a market value of $1.75 trillion. But understand what you're buying here, right? This is a combination of rockets and satellites and connectivity and AI infrastructure and social media distribution all under one roof. Revenue last year hit $18.6 billion, up 33%. Impressive, yes, but understand that they lost $5 billion. Why? Because Starlink is printing cash while the AI is eating all of it. Starlink generated about $11 billion, uh, and subscribers doubled to more than 10 million, but the average revenue per user, well, that's fallen, meaning more users, less money per user. Meanwhile, management spent more than $20 billion in CapEx with AI consuming more capital than rockets and connectivity combined. So listen to that one more time. AI consumed more capital than rockets. And if you think shareholders are going to influence any of this, wake up. Elon is going to retain 85% voting control through the dual class, dual class structure. You're buying a seat in the rocket, but you're not allowed to touch the controls. Now the bull case: Starlink scale, AI dominance, orbital data centers, and what they call a $28.5 trillion TAM—total addressable market—the largest actionable market in human history. The bear case, if there's one: massive capital burn, uh, failing subscriber economics, and expectations so high that there's almost zero room for error. The bottom line, it is a bet on Elon's vision of the future. It's Starlink wrapped around a cash-burning AI lab with a rocket company attached run by one man who holds 85% of the votes. And then you could hear the hearts beating, right, as the world awaited the NVIDIA earnings last night after the bell. And when Jensen Huang spoke, he crushed it, beating every measure substantially. Revenue coming in at $81.6 billion, up 85% year over year. Earnings per share of $1.87 versus $1.77. Guidance for the next quarter lands at $91 billion, again ahead of all the estimates. And then he left us with this one thought: demand has gone parabolic. A gigantic AI has arrived. Little subtitle under there that demand is going to outstrip supply for years to come. Now, do I need to say anything more? Should you be selling your NVIDIA? I don't think so. But understand what happened last night. There was virtually no reaction in the after-hours markets. And that is the story this morning, because there was no reaction. It's basically unchanged. Not because the numbers disappointed, not at all. They didn't. They were extraordinary. Another monster quarter and another beat, another raise, another quarter where Jensen reminded everyone why NVIDIA remains the center of the AI universe. And by the way, they raised their dividend on top of it. But extraordinary is no longer enough. Extraordinary has become the expectation. And when a company delivers one of the greatest earnings runs in market history and the stock barely moves, the market is telling you something— that expectations are stretched, positioning is crowded, perfection has already been priced in. Which does not mean that the story is broken. It's not broken by any stretch of the imagination. And it does not mean, in my opinion, that you should sell the stock. It just means that the next phase of this move is not gonna come simply from owning NVIDIA. It'll help, but it's gonna come from owning the ecosystem around it. NVIDIA remains at the heartbeat, but the heartbeat alone doesn't keep the whole body alive. Look at the companies that make AI work at scale. They're networking, it's memory, it's optical connectivity, it's servers, it's power management, it's cooling, it's data center buildout. And then a layer below that or above that, however you wanna look at it, sits another set of businesses that turn all this computing power into profits. So think software, cybersecurity, architecture, enterprise adoption, automation, and productivity. Because if NVIDIA keeps becoming more perfect, the better risk-reward may not be in the heartbeat anymore. It may be in everything that's connected to it. Now let's discuss what happened yesterday because that was a whole nother story that we should address. Markets exploded higher yesterday. Trump said that we're close to a deal with Iran. In fact, the actual words were, "We're in the final stages of negotiations." Oil plunged, falling $5 or nearly 5% to end the day at $98.25. Brent fell $6 or 5.5% to end the day at $105. Bonds rallied on the idea that the inflation fears are now overblown. The TLT rose 1.1%, the TLH added 1%, and that caused yields to back off a bit. The 2-year is now yielding 4.05, down from a high of 4.13. The 10-year is yielding 4.56, down from a high of 4.68. The 30-year is yielding 5.1, down from its high of nearly 5.2%. And stocks exploded. The algos going berserk, not sure what they should do first, so they just bought everything all together because that's what the algos do. The Dow added 645 points, or 1.3%. The S&P up 80 points, or 1.1%. The NASDAQ ahead by 400 points, or 1.5%. The Russell, which got smoked on Monday, took it all back, adding 70 points or 2.6%. The Transports rose 458 points or 2.3%. The Equal Weight S&P rose 93 points or 1.1%, while the Mag Seven gained 474 points or 1.3%. Now, we've been here before, so let me remind you, until there is an actual agreement, signed, sealed, delivered, structured, enforceable, and the Strait reopens with no strings attached, This whole story is not over, but we can remain hopeful. Now, gold was mostly unchanged yesterday at $4,545, and this morning it's down $12 to around $4,533, suggesting investors are still trying to decide which story to believe. Is gold pricing in sticky inflation or continued geopolitical risk, or is it beginning to price in easing tensions across the Middle East and lower oil prices? For now, it remains trapped between the trend lines, right? There's support down at $4,365, there's resistance at $4,680. So there's no really reason to get dramatic in either direction because it's stuck right there in the middle. If inflation begins to cool and tensions ease, then gold should likely feel some pressure to trade lower as investors unwind both the inflation hedge and the safe haven trade. Lower oil could help stabilize years and help rotate yields and help rotate money back into equities and other risk assets. But I would not expect gold to collapse. And why? Because gold no longer appears to be trading solely on the inflation fears. It's also reflecting the ongoing central bank demand that we've been talking about for a year now. Think China, India, Turkey, etc. There's still geopolitical uncertainty, there's still fiscal concerns, and there's broader diversification away from the traditional reserve assets. So while some of the war premium may come out of the price of gold, the trust premium may not. Now, the VIX fell by 3.4% yesterday to 17.44, and that tells you investors took fear off the table. Why? Oil and Treasuries. Traders unwound some of the protection that they had bought on the back of this good news. But don't confuse a lower VIX with an all clear sign. It's not. At 17.44, we're moving back below the trend line and moving more towards into complacency zone. But that doesn't mean you just go out and buy everything. It just means the market is getting complacent again, and we know what happens when that happens. And considering oil bonds and geopolitics are still unresolved, I would stick to the plan. No reason to change what has been working for you, right? ECO data today includes housing starts expected to be down 5%, building permits up 2.5%, along with the S&P US Manufacturing and Services PMIs, both expected to be in the expansion zone at 51.2 and 51.8, respectively. Effectively. This morning, European markets are a bit weaker. All the markets down about 2/10 of a percent, nothing dramatic at all other than what's happening with all the European satellite companies. Eutelsat, which is a Paris-based global satellite operator, is up about 13%. OHB, which is a German satellite company, up 12%, and SES is up 4.5%, all on the back of the SpaceX excitement. U.S. futures are under pressure. Dow futures were down 50, S&P's down 17, NASDAQ down 100, and the Russell's down 12. The long weekend is now about to begin. Travel delays are already building. And guess what? There's a big huge sinkhole at LaGuardia Airport, and that caused them to, uh, close down one of the runways, and it's causing all kinds of delays and cancellations. I mean, you can't make this shit up. And with gas at elevated levels, more and more people are opting just to stay put. The S&P closed at 7,432 yesterday, up 80 points. It's been a crazy week. We've had— we've seen the S&P trade as high as 7,517 and as low as 7,333 as the Iranian headlines drove of the actions in both directions. Now let's see what happens today. And remember, volumes are going to start to thin out as the weekend approaches and people move away from their desks, right? Moves will be exaggerated, potentially in both directions. My advice: go away and enjoy the weekend. Do not make emotional, FOMO-driven decisions. Stay focused, stay in quality, stick to your plan. A plan that should be based on who you are, your age, your risk tolerance, your liquidity needs, Feel free to call me. I always say this at 561-931-0190 because I'm always happy to discuss your plan and actually give you a portfolio review to see how it matches the risk in your portfolio versus your risk that you think you have. Okay, what do we have? We're having ground chuck and short rib burgers for the weekend, right? It's a Memorial Day weekend. The barbecues are out. This is a spectacular burger. Their ground chuck burgers mixed with the shredded short rib meat. It's crazy, right? It's a lot of work, but if you have time and you really want to impress, you got to go for it. So you want to make a half a dozen ribs the night before. You're going to cool them and then shred the meat off the bone. Then you're going to mix the cooked short rib meat with the ground chuck that you've seasoned with salt and pepper. You're going to form the burgers. You're going to cook them on the grill. You're going to top them with sautéed onions and Monterey Jack or whatever kind of cheese you like and serve them on a butter toasted brioche bun to complete the dish. It is outstanding. Now, if you don't remember, here's the braised short rib recipe that you should use. You need about 8 to 10 beef short ribs, depending on, again, how many burgers you're making, how many people. You need carrots, celery, onions, garlic, tomato paste, red wine, beef broth, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Start with the ribs at room temperature, rinse them, pat them dry, season with salt and pepper on all sides. Then take a large pot or a large frying pan with big sides Add the olive oil, turn the heat up, get it nice and hot, and then add the ribs to the olive oil and sear them, right? Get them all crusty and brown all over, right? Turn them until they're all nice and crusty. Then take the ribs and place them in like a large aluminum pan or a glass Pyrex baking dish, something that's deep. Put the— line them up on their sides, um, and then chop— don't mince— chop the veggies, right? The onions, the carrots, the celery, and the garlic. Don't be afraid to use the garlic. It just gets sweeter and sweeter, right? Um, then cover the ribs with all the veggies. Then go back to the frying pan, add the beef broth, add the tomato paste, the small— the small can, again depending on how much you need, maybe it's half a can, whatever, and some of your favorite red wine. Bring it all to a boil, then to a simmer. Let the sauce reduce by about half. Then once it's done, you're going to pour this— all this juice over the ribs in the baking pan. Now you want to make sure that there's enough juice that the ribs are bathing. You don't want to drown them, you just want them to be bathing. And cover it tightly with tin foil, put it in the oven and bake it for at least 4 hours. Actually, the longer you leave it in there, the softer and the juicier they get. So you can leave in there 5 or 6 hours even, right? Um, if you don't have enough time, turn the heat up to 350, but make sure they're covered tightly because it's the, it's the steam inside that gets them all nice and juicy and delicious. And then do what I said— cool them, shred them, mix the beef, make the burgers, put them on the grill. Your, your guests will absolutely love it, and they're going to love you for making them. Until tomorrow, take good care.
