Tech Set to Bounce Today;

Carter Braxton Worth, ahead of summering near the shore of Nantucket, dropped by CNBC this afternoon, clad in his bearshitter uniform of khaki pants and blue blazer with gold buttons affixed to it, to tell the world to SELL AMERICAN TECH STOCKS NOW.

He went into a bunch of random theories, none of which I bothered paying attention to. Truth be told, I was a little busy eating a greek yogurt, watching the Lebron James basketball show. But I’m sure Mr. Worth made a ton of great suggestions and will end up making you a fucking fortune.

Doom beckons and it’s just around the bend.

A good friend of President Trump, Chris Ruddy, took to the moribund airwaves of PBS this evening and lit it on fire by suggesting the President might be ‘terminating’ Robert Mueller from investigating ‘Russian collusion.’

He went into a sundry of reasons as to why this might occur, such as Mueller meeting with the President a few days before the appointment because the President was considering him to be the next FBI head. If Trump were to do this and go ‘full Nixon’, The Fly could die in peace knowing the chaos once ruled the earth in magnanimous form, led by an Orange God who only pursued wanton acts of aggressive and caustic actions against his many enemies.

Rep. Schiff told Chris Mathews that Trump can’t choose his prosecutor and if he dared fire Mueller, the Congress-shills would immediately change the laws to reappoint Mueller.

The problem with AG Sessions is that he’s an honorable man. Tomorrow he will enter into the lion’s den of perfidious scoundrels, perverts and degenerates alike, who will attempt to both beguile and dishonor him in front of the country. Bear in mind, this is self-inflicted wound by Sessions, who could’ve just told the Senate to ‘fuck off.’ Instead, he agreed to this clown-show, giving the democrats a false sense of importance — permitting them to ask absurd questions all intended to remove him from his place in office.

The question remains, what the fuck is wrong with Sessions and why would he do this to himself?

Judge Nap agrees and outlines the reasons why it’s a bad idea for Sessions to testify in front of a room of shills.

All of the lemmings on the left going along with the fictional Russian conspiracy nonsense are useful idiots. To date, there is ZERO evidence that Russia hacked our elections, aside from the much lauded and praised ’17 intelligence agencies’ who tell us it happened. They can, without revocations, fuck themselves.

The collusion that the Democrats and GOP shills have tried to pin on Trump, through state media, is laughable — but also dangerous.

Tucker Carlson reviews the red scare gripping Washington, offering insight into the much talked about meeting between AG Sessions and a certain Russian diplomat that has democrats going batshit crazy — calling for his resignation.

“Over the weekend, we tracked down an eyewitness to one of those meetings. It took place at the republican national convention in Cleveland, the first week of July last summer. It was an event called ‘global partners in democracy.’ It turned out not to be a very scintillating gathering, staged every four years and has for decades, on behalf of scores of foreign diplomats who want to see how American politics works. So Sessions gave a speech and as he left the stage, about 15 ambassadors walked up to say hi to him. Kislyak was among them. That was the total extent of the meeting right there. Sessions and Kislyak never broke away to talk privately. They never exchanged cash or micro film, or secret messages.”

Watch.

Absurdly, AG Sessions is scheduled to be grilled in front of the Senate tomorrow.

What a splendid day in the neighborhood. The temperature and humidity are perfect. And Bitcoins are crashing through the floorboards — taking all speculative measures with it.

Kaplunk! — hammered by 14% and counting

Ethereum was up 21% earlier in the session, and now it’s down — because the world is ending.

On the equities side of the ledger, tech’s brightest and best barely down. Only Apple is down more than 3%, thanks to a couple of downgrades. Everything else is down around 1-2% — hardly crash worthy. However, as we dial down the market caps, the losses become more extreme — as should be expected. Nevertheless, losses are extremely manageable and I’m sure the dumbest amongst you are ready to hop back in.

If this is the beginning of a real drawdown, you will soon begin to rue the day you bought dips, especially in tech. The concentration amongst Wall Street’s most stimulated is at an extreme now. Never has there been such a time when ‘hedge fund hotels’ held so many FANG or FAAG stocks. It’s only a matter of time now before that trade unwinds, for the benefit of posterity.

The safe havens are now found in beaten up sectors, like retail, oil and REITs, while gold and bonds are ignored by the risk averse. This tape is especially detrimental, as the standard correlations, at least for now, are being ignored. To me, this means we’re in for an unusual event, perhaps an extraordinary decline in the not-too-distant future.

I am long stocks with 70% of my assets, 20% reserved in cash, and another 10% in TLT/GLD. I am broadly diversified and have minor losses for the day. My portfolio will adjust, according to my model, each and every Friday.

The one stock I am watching for risk appetite is NVDA. It embodies all that is sacred and wrong with this society.

Let the games begin.

Can we have a better time for OA’s bootcamp? Be sure to sign up. It starts tonight.

I wanted to highlight the fact that the overall market isn’t in any real danger, just the Nasdaq. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, this drop in tech is exactly like early 2014. After the ebb tide had been reached, dozens of tech stocks dropped by 50% from their highs — so be careful about buying into shallow dips.

With volume accelerating, there are some interesting dichotomies setting up — namely in retail and healthcare. Tech, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, is fucking dead.

I’ll break today’s action down by sector.

Basic materials: HP +4%, CHK +3%, CPG +2.4%
Consumer Goods: UAA +4%, PII +3%, COTY +2.5%; QRVO -4%, KEYS -2.8%, UN -1.5%
Financials: BRX +2.5%, MAC +2.5%, GGP +2.4%; BSBR -3.6%, CSGP -2.4%, BBD -2.6%
Healthcare: UHS +2.5%, GILD +2.1%, MD +2%; ALGN -6.2%, IDXX -5.1%, TSRO -4.3%
Industrials: GE +3.2%, FLS +2.6%, SERV +2.1%; TDG -5.5%, ESLT -2.4%, TTC -2.2%
Services: SLB +3.8%, CBS +3.8%, BBBY +3.7%; NFLX -4.8%, AAL -4%, IAC -3.2%
Tech: AKAM +2.4%, IMOS +2%, TRIP +1.9%; OLED -8.5%, STM -6%, SHOP -4.8%
Utes: OKE +1.2%; EIX -1.6%

Overall, basic materials, services, consumer goods and financials are up, while losses remain most readily found in both healthcare and tech. In healthcare, biotech and high risk trades are getting mauled the worst.

My portfolio is +0.02% on a median basis. I’ll take it.

Since losses are concentrated and predictable, you’d have to be a moron to continue losing money past today. Then again, there is an insatiable desire for people to buy dips, so expect to see valiant efforts on behalf of tech loving submentals. Ultimately, they’ll fail — because the big money shift is on and it’d be hard to reverse course now — after such a minor blood letting.

Tech stocks are getting hammered early going, with the NASDAQ down more than 70. The divergence between tech and retail is palpable. I suppose people want to buy shitty soon to be bankrupt companies and swap out of immensely profitable ones. Either way, the sell off was overdue and we’re just getting started. Here are some of the standouts.

ADBE -4.2%, STX -4%, NVDA -4%, AAPL -3.5%, GOOGL -3.1%

On the upside.

GE +4.5% (Immelt retired), KSS +4%, RIG +3.5%, LB +3.5%

The essence of this market is tied up in the high flying shares of NVDA, so watch that for a tell. Since the leaders are down in the magnitude of 3%, expect lower tiers names to get their brains blown out. I see WIX, MKSI, AEIS, PANL and CAVM are down in the magnitude of ~8%.

This is going to be a fucking bloodbath. Never buy the first leg down. Always wait for the fuckheads on the StockTwits boards, who were just appraising tech as being ‘way undervalued’, to cry in agony and misery first, then step in and ‘buy the blood’ and make your forte.

Back in 2010, Bain Capital bid up for Gymboree, paying $1.8b, or a 23% premium, for the children’s retailer. An analyst from Stifel praised the deal, saying “Kids keep growing, and you have to keep dressing them. It’s one of the facts of life.”

Since then, as it customary in the world of private equity, Gymboree’s balance sheet was leveraged, stretched to the limits, resulting in the retailers going bust. They’re not in the midst of a restructuring — reducing debts by more than $900m.

“The steps we are taking today allow the Company to definitively address its debt and enable the management team to turn its full focus toward executing our key strategies, including our Product, Brand and Omni-channel initiatives,” CEO Daniel Griesemer said in a statement. “We expect to move through this process quickly and emerge as a stronger organization that is better positioned in today’s evolving retail landscape.”

According to recent filings, Gymboree had $1.4b in debt. They’re tapped AlixPartners to help restructure the company, after receiving a $308m lifeline to keep the retailer’s doors open.

This downgrade is pure shit. Why even bother ‘downgrading’ a stock from a price target of $160 down to just $150? Why not do nothing at all and eat sandwiches, unless of course you’re a media whore trying to capitalize on the near term weakness in tech stocks. This is precisely what Mizhuo is doing this morning.

We are downgrading Apple to Neutral from Buy while adjusting our PT to $150 from $160. The stock has meaningfully outperformed on a YTD basis and we believe enthusiasm around the upcoming product cycle is fully captured at current levels, with limited upside to estimates from here on out. Our sensitivity work indicates bull case EPS of around $11 which, along with a cycle-peak multiple, indicates limited upside to the stock. Our LTVC work suggests more muted gains as well. As such, we move to the sidelines despite our expectations of a strong iPhone 8 cycle.

Still expect strong iPhone 8 cycle. We concur that the upcoming product cycle is likely to drive a strong holiday season following into early next year; however, we believe strength is anticipated and see very limited upside to estimates from here. A few things make us cautious on consensus FY18 numbers: 1) potential pull-in of demand creating tough comps in the following year; 2) growth driven primarily by replacements vs. net new customers, limiting expansion of installed base; 3) initial supply constraints due to complexities around product ramp; 4) potentially higher ASPs for high-end SKU driving demand elasticity; 5) risk to out-year gross margins.

Downgrading to Neutral from Buy; adjusting PT to $150 from $160. At 15x and 11x NTM EPS and FCF, the stock is trading near the upper-end of its recent valuation range and we believe it is tough to expect the multiple to expand. With limited upside to EPS or FCF estimates, we think the stock is fully valued.

Limited upside, yadda, yadda, yadda. The stock is down a whole 1.5% in the pre-market.