Valedictorian

5-25-25

Opening Comments

My last note was about a hot new Boca Restaurant (Motek) that replaced a horrible one (Fiolina). The most opened links were the video of the day of a great commencement speech full of wisdom and the 5 things happy couples do on weekends. The antisemitic Florida Porsche dealer was a close third.

In my last note, I had a segment regarding a Johns Hopkins study on practice, and some could not get the link to work. Here it is on how to improve your skills.

I’m heading up to NYC on June 2nd, as I will be on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene and Damian Sassower on June 4th. I had a great time last year and am looking forward to my segment. This summer, I will be bouncing around between: NYC; Southampton; Marion, MA; Bethlehem, PA, and a few other cities for a couple of months.

One of my friends and contributors to the Rosen Report passed away last week after a long battle with cancer. John Gore was an amazing person. He was bright, kind, and loved by all. Even during his hardest battles with the horrific disease, he was smiling with a positive attitude. He will be missed.

• Picture of the Day-Cafe’ Maxx

• Valedictorian

• Quick Bites

  • Markets

  • New Open AI Business Line

  • Demark Raised Retirement Age

  • Airline Summer of Hell

  • New NYC “Reasonable” Sushi

• Tariffs

• Politics

• Middle East

• Other Headlines

• Health

• Real Estate

  • Wealthy New Yorkers Moving Downtown (I Agree)

  • Number One Country People Are Moving To

  • Top Beaches in the US

Picture of the Day-Cafe’ Maxx

Cafe Maxx has been Pompano favorite for 41 years, and after 35 visits, I can say it’s never let me down in food or service. It was my son Jack’s graduation, and we went on Tuesday night to celebrate. I have written countless full reviews. I believe it is the best food in Broward or Palm Beach counties. Prices have increased sharply in recent years, but it is worth it, and the Rosen family prefers to spend special occasions here.

• Food 8.8

• Service 9.1

• Ambiance-7.0

• Price-Full but fair

• Wine List-Solid

Valedictorian

It is hard to believe my son graduated from high school last week. It seems as though just last year that I brought him back from the hospital when he was born.

Time flies by when it comes to your life and especially your children. It was just yesterday that I was reading my favorite book to Jack in nursery school. Below is Knuffle Bunny, but my favorite to read the kids was, Yertle the Turtle, by Dr. Seuss.

Wise adults always told me that life happens fast and raising your kids goes by in the blink of an eye. They were not kidding. Jack was a straight-A student and knew he was one of the better kids in the class. But I had no idea about the announcement that the principal would make at graduation: that Jack Rosen was the school valedictorian. The announcement was delayed due to a close race with another student, where final exam grades factored into the decision.

As a parent, you always look for ways to celebrate your kid’s accomplishments. For Jack, the list was long. He was a great chess player in elementary school. Then he took up golf and won plenty of tournaments, including the high school qualifier despite being in 7th grade. I vividly remember the high school coach telling me Jack had no chance and not to waste his time. The look on the coach’s face when Jack won despite being less than half the size of the high school seniors will forever be etched in my memory. Then Jack moved on to the guitar and became a great singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Then his focus turned to academics, and it was all A’s with a dozen AP classes. He also became fully fluent in Spanish despite parents who don’t speak a word.

There is a Hebrew word, nachas, which means pride, especially the achievement of one’s children. Well, my kids have given my wife and me plenty of proud moments, and the announcement of Jack winning valedictorian brought tears to my eyes. The kid works so hard at everything he does. He studied his ass off to excel academically and it paid off with finishing in the top of his class and gaining admission to Wake Forest.

At the end of the day, I would always hire people who had a great work ethic, good values, and the ability to connect with people over just raw IQ. My son is proof that hard work results in extraordinary results. Although I am saddened to see him leave the nest in 81 days, I am excited to watch from afar to see his next amazing successes. Son, all you have accomplished should give you the confidence to continue to crush it at every stage of your life.

Jack is interested in finance and real estate. He has a few brief internships in NYC this summer to learn more about his interests. If you know people who would show him the ropes for a few days, he would be all ears.

To celebrate, we had dinner with close family friends whose son also graduated. I opened some special wine for the occasion: a bottle Dan Loeb bought me for my birthday. I vividly remember that somber dinner in Soho when the world was ending in November of 2008. It was the most depressing birthday, given the environment. The wine was spectacular. Dan, thank you again for the gift. It was used for a special occasion.

Quick Bites

• Another volatile week with weaker bond markets pushing up yields and scaring equity markets. The 30-year Treasury yield closed at 5.03% (+13bps on week) in part due to the House bill, which is increasing deficits. Tariffs were back in the news as Trump hit Apple for foreign-made iPhones and recommended a 50% tariff on the EU. I just do not see iPhone manufacturing in the US as logical absent full robotics. Trump complained that the tariff negotiations stalled, and he is “not looking for a deal” with the EU. Apple stock dropped 3% on the day and is-22% YTD. On the week, the S&P was -2.6% and the Nasdaq was -2.5%. The new Trump Administration tariff headlines shows that uncertainty will be around for a while. In six weeks, the 30-year Treasury yield is +70bps. Oil was slightly weaker on the week and closed at $61.5/barrel due to expected OPEC output increases of 411k barrels a day in July. Bitcoin is +16% over the past month and closed at $108k. This article outlines what is driving the rally in Bitcoin.

  

  

• Interesting $6.4bn acquisition by OpenAI of Jony Ive’s company, LoveFrom, an AI devices start up. Altman and Ive offered a few hints at the secret project they have been working on. The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and will be a third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. They plan on making 100mm devices and begin shipping late next year. After reading multiple articles on the topic, I remain a bit confused what the devices will do, but I am intrigued.

  

• I am a broken record on federal spending, entitlements, deficits, and debt levels. Look at Europe and the number of countries RAISING retirement age. Denmark is raising the retirement age to 70 over time, as life expectancy continues to grow. UK, France, and Italy are all raising the age of retirement, yet the US refuses to consider it. The math does not work. Social Security started in 1935 when the average life expectancy in the US was 60.7 years. Now it is 78 years and retirement remains unchanged at 65 years old. We need to stop $2 trillion deficits that are between 5-7% of GDP. We need entitlement reform to include raising the retirement age, introducing means testing (rich are ineligible), and raising the contribution cap. Sadly, the Republican bill makes deficits worse and bond markets continue to sell off with the 30-year Treasury at 5.03%. Of note, Japan’s debt markets are under pressure as well.

• This CNN article, “Airlines brace for the summer of hell,” outlines the challenges facing the industry despite sharply lower oil prices. Air traffic control problems are causing flight delays and cancellations, feeding into traveler worries over safety that began in January with the worst US air crash in decades. A global trade war and other economic concerns are driving down the value of the dollar, making overseas travel more expensive for Americans. Meanwhile, foreign travelers are staying away either in protest over actions by the Trump administration or due to immigration concerns. This article calls an “absolute decline” in US tourist spending. There are also new security rules requiring airlines passengers upgrade to a “Real ID” to get through TSA checkpoints, which could keep some passengers from flying. Add to that a general concern about the economy, and what’s usually a key money-making time for the airlines could fall short this year.

• My readers know about my love of fine dining and also realize I hate paying a huge price for a great dinner. This Bloomberg article outlines new and exciting omakase restaurants in NYC from major chefs that aims at offering better value. As you know, the best omakase experiences can be $500+, but these are more reasonable, but hardly free. I am yet to try them, but I can assure you I will be hitting a few of these in the coming weeks as I head to the Northeast for the summer. Reviews will follow. I checked out the websites and must tell you many of these places look LEGIT. I can’t wait.

  

Tariffs

• Nike will raise prices on a wide range of products as soon as this week

  • Be careful. You will feel the wrath of Trump for not absorbing 100% of the costs. What a joke. Of course, Nike should pass on the costs to consumers from the ill-advised tariff policy.

  • Adidas, Puma expected to hike prices due to tariffs following Nike’s lead: ‘Moment they were waiting for’

• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says tariffs haven’t dented consumer spending

  • I was surprised to read this one.

• Shipping costs set to double as companies rush to import goods before China-US trade truce ends

  • However, according to Apollo’s Torsten Slok, shipments from China remain low.

    

Politics

• Trump tax bill clears the House in a victory for Republicans, advances to the Senate

  • The maximum SALT deduction increases from its current level of $10,000 to $40,000, for taxpayers reporting less than $500,000 in income.

• House Republican Shreds Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ as ‘Titanic’-Level ‘Debt Bomb’

  • I am critical of any party that is not fiscally responsible. We have a spending problem, and politicians tend to not worry about massive deficits and runaway spending.

• One Cheer for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

  • House Republicans barely passed their massive bill this morning. It extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts, but it spends too much and further complicates the tax code in undesirable ways. This is a relatively balanced article that gives kudos as well as I constructive criticism on the deficit angle.

• Food stamps face ‘biggest cut in the program’s history’ under GOP tax bill

  • The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, may be cut about 30% under the terms of the bill, which would be the “biggest cut in the program’s history,” according to Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

• Only 12 cents of every dollar spent by USAID went to recipients

  • Short video of Rubio giving a powerful statement on a host of topics.

• Trump signs orders to overhaul Nuclear Regulatory Commission, speed reactor deployment

• The Decline and Fall of Elon Musk

  • The rise and fall of Musk was serious. If you recall, I wrote in my 2025 prediction piece that Musk would burn out of Trump’s orbit as my first prediction. I do think Musk should be focused on generating value for his shareholders and do “light” advising on DOGE. I never thought $2 trillion in savings was achievable and hoped for $500bn. The stated DOGE # is $170bn, and I am not convinced that is accurate, as some of the cancelled contracts are multi-year. Sure, I am happy with savings, but would like to know the true amount of annual savings including the offsets of lost taxes from jobs cut and the lost income tax related. Musk, I appreciate you and what you have done for society. Politics are brutal, and even the richest man in the world is not immune to the DC chaos. Don’t say I never warned you.

• Rejecting Biden’s Anti-Cop Agenda Is an Important Step

  • The Justice Department is suspending investigations and other actions against police officers.

• ‘That calling is there’: Donald Trump Jr. teases future White House run

• Matt Gaetz's Chances of Winning Florida Governor Race, According to Poll

• Joe Scarborough admits he was 'obviously wrong' about 'best Biden ever' comments

  • I crushed Scarborough for these idiotic comments. The Biden Administration, Biden Family, and the media were complicit in keeping the Biden lies alive. I started calling out Biden before he won in 2020.

  • Ex-Obama aide admits he didn’t mention Biden’s decline because he ‘wanted him to f—king win’

• Federal judge blocks Trump administration from barring foreign student enrollment at Harvard

• Top $TRUMP holders head to crypto dinner with president that Democrats call ‘orgy of corruption’

  • This dinner and the plane just do not look good. Better judgement please.

  • At Trump’s $148 million meme coin dinner, ‘the food sucked’ and security was lax, attendee says

• Kim Jong Un says 'serious accident' with new N. Korea warship was 'criminal act'

Middle East

The global hatred of Jews accelerates at a concerning pace. Yet another senseless killing in DC of a young couple, and people are supporting the accused murderer. Jews account for .2% of the global population and 22% of the Nobel Prizes. Tell me another group that outperforms anywhere close. Jews should be idolized, not demonized. Hard work, the importance of education, and family are drilled into Jewish kids at a young age.

• 2 Israeli Embassy staffers about to be engaged gunned down by suspect who yelled ‘Free, free Palestine’ near DC’s Capital Jewish Museum

  • The arrested man was a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and sounds like a Left-wing nutcase.

  • Accused DC Jewish museum terrorist Elias Rodriguez reportedly posted ‘death to America,’ praised Luigi Mangione in unhinged posts

  • Baby-faced anti-Israel teen urges his 1M followers to support suspected DC terrorist in rant so vile TikTok pulled it —then doubles down on hate

  • Security ramped up in New York, Miami after Israeli Embassy staffers’ killings

    • Sick pro-Hamas groups celebrate horrific murder of Israeli diplomats outside Jewish museum as ‘heroic attack’

• Israel strikes more than 100 targets in Gaza — thousands stormed streets of Tel Aviv to demand release of hostages

• Columbia University prez defends ex-student Mahmoud Khalil in commencement, sparking graduates’ anger

  • As a Jew, you should not be donating to schools that do not support Israel and Jews.

• Explicit antisemitic attitudes are now much more common among young voters - 18 year old registered voters are now ~5x more likely to say that they have an unfavorable view of the Jewish people than 65 year olds.

• Ye Asks For God’s “Forgiveness,” Says He’s Done With Antisemitism

  • I hate this loser, and I will applaud anything bad that comes his way. He is an antisemitic, narcissistic clown who treats his wife like an imbecile. If I hear one of his crappy songs on the radio, I immediately change it. He hates Jews and women. No rehabilitating this idiot.

Other Headlines

• Ray Dalio says to fear the bond market as deficit becomes critical

  • I continue to harp on deficits and debt levels. I don’t know when, but we will eventually pay the price for the decades of fiscal irresponsibility.

• Jamie Dimon warns that stagflation, an economic nightmare scenario, is a risk

• Anthropic launches Claude 4, its most powerful AI model yet

• Anthropic’s AI resorts to blackmail in simulations

  • Crazy stories here with a threat to expose the engineer’s affair.

• Solar stocks plunge as Republican tax bill worse than feared for clean energy

• Intuit shares pop 9% on earnings beat, rosy guidance

• Mark Cuban invested ‘about $33 million’ on ‘Shark Tank’—those stakes are now worth ‘at least $250 million,’ he says

• World most violent it has been in decades

  • At least 50 different countries have been hit by armed conflict in the past year, researchers find. (Good charts in the link).

    

• China to launch drone mothership

  • New high-altitude aircraft is designed to be capable of releasing a swarm of 100 attack drones. The 3D video is scary.

• Scissor-wielding, well-dressed NYC woman stabs man after he accidentally takes photo of her

• Masked thugs brutally beat, rob uniformed NYPD cop in brazen attack

• Teen bullies beat, kick 21-year-old with disability in barbaric caught-on-video attack: ‘Pure evil’

  • What the hell is wrong with people? I would love to see life in jail for these idiots. Who beats up a disabled person? Anyone who ever does that cannot be rehabilitated. The evil teens had charges dismissed. I’m sick to my stomach.

• Eighteen people injured in 'mass stabbing' at German railway station - four left critically hurt and blood seen on platforms

• Bombshell brunette beauty arrested alongside $100M crypto king for sadistic torture, kidnapping of tourist

• Wild video shows NJ cops pull impaired driver from car stuck on tracks seconds before train obliterates it

  • Crazy video of brave cops.

• She’s 11 years old. She’s about to graduate from college. And she’s just getting started

• Grocery store staple to disappear from shelves and ‘it’s happening now’ but official insists there’s easy way to stop it

• The Weirdest Street Names in the U.S. Revealed—From Windy Butte Way to Farfrompoopen Road

Health

• ‘You’ll be back’: Arnold Schwarzenegger on the most important move to make to stay healthy aging into 50s, 60s and beyond

  • Although I agree with his thoughts, he is hardly a bastion of health after abusing steroids, leading to multiple heart attacks and back surgeries.

• Should you shower in the morning or evening? Microbiologist reveals ‘clear answer

  • I shower two to three times a day every day. I cannot remember the last time I showered one time in a day.

• Johns Hopkins Study of 1.9 Million Women Confirms Covid ‘Vaccines’ Depopulate

  • The US was forced to take unproven vaccines by the government, military, and many companies. What are the consequences now that more data is showing concerning ramifications?

• A tech exec ate lots of ultra-processed foods. He became CEO of a nutrition company and took 5 steps to improve his diet.

• Cardiac arrests on the job are rising and often fatal. Workers and employers are not prepared for the risk

  • I just recertified my CPR training last week. It took a total of 1.5 hours between an online course and in-person work. I am the assistant coach of a girls’ high school golf team, and it was required.

• ‘Ozempic teeth’ is the latest alarming side effect of weight-loss drugs: ‘Quite damaging’

Real Estate

• I lived in NYC for 25 years and had apartments all over Manhattan. I can tell you that I am not a fan of living uptown and far prefer living downtown. Better restaurants, younger, cooler, more hip, nightlife. You lose Central Park and cleanliness by moving below 23rd street, but if I were ever forced back to Manhattan, you can bet I would be living downtown. This article, “New York’s Wealthiest All Want to Live Downtown Now,” outlines why downtown is hot with the richest people. A seismic shift is taking place in downtown Manhattan. Traditionally, the city’s most expensive real estate has been uptown, on Billionaires’ Row, Central Park West and the Upper East Side. But with a spate of big-ticket sales and listings below 14th Street, downtown prices are starting to rival the city’s most expensive uptown enclaves. As finance and tech firms have migrated downtown—alongside new retail, parks, and cultural institutions—a new wave of luxury condo development along the West Side Highway is luring wealthy buyers to neighborhoods like the West Village, Tribeca and Chelsea. There were more $30 million-plus home sales below 34th Street in the past five years than in the previous decade, according to data from Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. Since 2023, the area has seen more than $1 billion worth of home sales above $20 million. “There’s a whole bunch of very wealthy people working in the vicinity, meaning they often want to live in the vicinity,” said real-estate agent Clayton Orrigo of Compass. “They’re buying up the West Side Highway.”

• The No. 1 country Americans want to move to most, says survey of over 100,000 people

  

• Long Island beach tops Dr. Beach’s 2025 rankings

  • I have been to Coopers and Main Beach as they are in the Hamptons. Both are nice. Are they best in the country? I am not so sure.

© 2025 The Rosen Report LLC. All rights reserved. Does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult with your lawyers and professional financial advisers. Rosen Report™ #788 ©Copyright 2025 Written By Eric Rosen.