You can’t reconcile the political blunder that was just realized by Theresa May, judging by the exit polls of today’s elections.
She didn’t have to call for early elections, but chose to do so anyway to reaffirm her mandate for BREXIT. Now her party is heading towards disaster, with as many as 17 seats lost, possibly resulting in a hung parliament.
As such, the pound is taking a beating, off by 0.83%, which is stupid since Corbyn is a BREMAINER and a May loss might lead to her potential resignation just 11 days before BREXIT.
Nigel Farage weighs in, saying May is just ‘no good.’
The big story out of today’s testimony had nothing to do with Trump collusion or obstruction of justice, but the revelation that Comey had, in fact, willingly leaked both privileged and classified information to a friend of his, who is suspected to be Professor Daniel Richman, the details of his communications with the President, to the media, in order to prompt a special counsel.
These retaliatory actions can only be viewed through one prism: he was out to get the President.
During today’s hearings, Comey said he took notes of every single meeting with the President, something he had never done with Bush or Obama, because he had a ‘gut feeling’ he’d need them, afraid that the President would lie. If this doesn’t give insight into the bias Comey harbored against Trump, nothing will.
Back on the topic of leaks, President Trump’s presidency has been beguiled by them since the day he was sworn in. The fact that Comey just admitted to being willing and able to become a source to a low-life degenerate NY Times or Washpo hack brings forth a very important question.
What else has Comey leaked? Moreover, was it legal for him to leak this information to the media, considering the conversations with the President were both privileged and classified?
Rubio pressed Comey on the fact that just about everything had been leaked from the White House, with exception to the fact that he was NOT under investigation — inferring that forces within deep state had withheld leaking info that might be viewed as a positive for the President.
The President’s attorney, Marc Kasowitz, laid into the former FBI director today — highlighting the fact that Comey had leaked to his friends and the media both privileged and classified information to the media. More to that point, Comey had stated that he leaked the info AFTER Trump made a tweet regarding having tapes of their conversation. However, and as Kasowitz points out, the NY Times ran a story, based upon the contents of these leaks, the day before Trump tweeted, which means Comey had lied under oath.
Trump’s attorney Kasowitz: Comey admitted to leaking privileged and classified info to friends and press pic.twitter.com/I8TGhJ34m2
The President also never told Mr. Comey, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty” in form or substance. Of course, the Office of the President is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration, and, from before this President took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers.
Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the President. The leaks of this privileged information began no later than March 2017 when friends of Mr. Comey have stated he disclosed to them the conversations he had with the President during their January 27, 2017 dinner and February 14, 2017 White House meeting. Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. He also testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to “prompt the appointment of a special counsel.” Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey’s excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to entirely retaliatory. We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.
In sum, it is now established that the President was not being investigated for colluding with the Russians or attempting to obstruct that investigation. As the Committee pointed out today, these important facts for the country to know are virtually the only facts that have not leaked during the long course of these events.
The entire Comey testimony reads like the distraught scribblings of a troubled man, having been sent through the ringer one too many times. I suppose I’ll get into it later, in spite of being sick of the subject. But from a market takeaway, it’s incredibly bullish. While you might hear commentary from people with an ax to grind about Trump being the devil, nothing in the Comey testimony speaks of collusion. Therefore, and this goes without saying, stocks are moving higher.
Most impressively are the banks. And I’m not just talking about GS, MS, BAC and C. The regional banks are the true stars here, up an astonishing 3% for the day — with gains in stocks like UMPQ, SIVB, PB and NBTB. Correlating with that is the energetic rally in ‘Trump stocks’, which leads me to believe the market is pricing in a gigantic nothing-burger for Trump and a possible open door to pro-growth legislation.
Remember, it was the rare oversold call in copper by Exodus that preceded this move. If you’re a member of Exodus and simply using the chat room for your trading, you’re doing yourself a heinous disservice.
The overall market is mixed, with breadth at 50%. The focus of the rally is centered around infrastructure, banks and even nuclear.
! Comey on why he wrote memos about Trump conversations: “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting” pic.twitter.com/BJuiqYJH6a
I wanted to be distracted enough to avoid the Comey hearings. Although I do love stirring the pot, providing kicks into wells for retards, I really do not have a keen interest in politics. While I might write about it and discuss the events of the day often, I only enjoy it for the chaos factor. Some of you take this business seriously. I can only surmise they’re all demented and well deserving of an ancient beating on the gibbet.
Now we will eagerly sit here, watching this soap opera unfold. Meanwhile, capital markets will be stagnant, only moving if Comey says anything that might hurt the President. Any damaging statements will be filtered as a negative for the economy. But don’t bet on it.
Early going, gold is dreadful. Stocks are flat. Fuckery is high.
Feel free to discuss the Comey testimony in the comments section.
Shares SNAP are barreling towards fresh 52 week lows — after investors finally began to realize that they bought a company trading ~25x sales. There isn’t a world in the multiverse that can justify such a high valuation. Dare I say, this stock will be halved by year end. Even at 12.5x sales, the stock would be richly valued. They’d actually have to perform and begin thinking about the concept of making money. I doubt they have it in them.
When I printed out that chart above, the stock was barely off by 5%. Now it’s down 5.5% and getting worse by the second. Without question, the $18 level will be breached. Both SNAP and TWTR are great products, but shitty businesses.
Shares of JWN are -32% over the past 6 months, but soaring in the pre-market on news that they might go private. Truthfully, I can’t blame them — given the toxic environment out there for retailers. As a whole, the company hasn’t done too bad, with sales still managing to grow, albeit low single digits. Net income is terrific, in the range of ~$350m per quarter — but down in the range of 30-50% from prior years.
Perhaps they need to go private in order to sort their business out, without the undue pressure of having to please shareholders.
The stock is +20% on the news, helping boost the stocks of other retailers too.
While everyone is glued to their sets, hoping that James Comey says some outlandish shit, Jack Ma from BABA is finally getting his due on Wall Street. The stock has exploded to the upside after providing much better than expected guidance on what they call ‘investor day’ — saying sales will increase by a staggering +45-49%. This is having a rapish effect on the portfolios of those short BABA, but it’s also boosting ancillary China plays — like BZUN, JD and even YHOO.
Needham weighs in.
Needham raises their BABA tgt to $155 from $140. Firm feels the highlight of the first day of Alibaba’s 2017 Investor Day was FY18 rev growth guidance above expectations. Co’s CFO provided rev growth guidance of 45-49% y/y growth, which was above consensus rev growth of 37%. This is an acceleration from FY17 growth of 44% growth excluding acquisitions. Mgmt expects core China Commerce growth to be the primary growth driver as Alibaba leverages its data assets to lift consumer engagement, driving more traffic to merchants and raising conversions. Given the higher than expected rev growth firm is raising their FY18 rev, EPS, and EBITDA ests.
Personally, the numbers at “the Chinese Amazon” have always been so good, they reminded me of a scam. Perhaps this is the turning point for Jack Ma’s street cred on Wall Street, not that he gives a shit since BABA is already a giant. Nevertheless, there aren’t any companies out there, the size of BABA, growing at +45-49%. Zero.
The stock is likely going to continue much higher, barring an overall market correction.
Constitutional expert and famed Harvard law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, took on Jeffrey Toobin to discuss the ongoing Trump-Comey saga, saying in no uncertain terms that “this is not obstruction of justice.”
He explains, “That is his constitutional power. He has the right to say, ‘You will not investigate Flynn.’ The best proof of that is he could have simply said to Comey, ‘Stop the investigation, I’ve just pardoned Flynn.’”
To back up his assertions, Dershowitz reminded viewers of when Bush I pardoned Casper Weinberger the night before trial. After doing so, no one cried ‘obstruction’ because it was within the rights of the President of the United States to do so.
“That’s what President Bush did,” Dershowitz said, citing the case of Caspar Weinberger. “You cannot have obstruction of justice when the president exercises his constitutional authority to pardon, his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI, or his constitutional authority to tell the director of the FBI who to prosecute and who not to prosecute.”
He made the point that impeachment and obstruction are two entirely different things, which reduced Jeffrey Toobin to look like an 11th grade history student learning the constitution for the first time. The President can be impeached for all manners of things, but not for firing Comey and/or asking him to stop investigating Flynn — because it is his right to do so.
“You can impeach him if you don’t like what he did,” he said. “But you cannot say it’s a crime. It’s simply not a crime for the president to exercise his constitutional authority to pardon or to direct the FBI.”
He concluded, “If you and I were expert witnesses in an impeachment trial of President Trump, and we were asked the question, ‘has President Trump committed an obstruction of justice by pardoning Flynn or by firing Comey, or by telling Comey not to investigate Flynn?’, my answer, as an expert on the constitution would be ‘absolutely not, he didn’t commit an obstruction of justice […] it simply isn’t a crime for the President to exercise his constitutional authority.’”
It was a gigantic nothing-burger in that nothing was said that could be construed as ‘bad’ for the President. Democrats and deep state shills are angered by the lack of disclosure, the cadence of some voices, even the body language — reading into things that were perhaps not there. Nevertheless, tomorrow is the Comey show and judging by his prepared remarks, there might be some red meat for the left to chew on soon.
Granted, none of this is ‘smoking gun’ quality evidence — but perhaps enough to distract the American public from John Podesta’s affinity for pizza and the sudden murder of Seth Rich, none of which have been adequately explained.
Here are the Comey remarks, who paints a picture of President Trump subtedly cajoling him to be loyal and perhaps drop the Flynn investigation.
JUST IN: Comey’s opening statement for Senate Intel tomorrow: “The President said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.'” pic.twitter.com/NRJWo4gi3j
This just about sums up the day, with the first video highlighting a CNN panel of leftists, triggered because nothing was said today that could potentially impeach the President. They viewed today’s hearings as ‘painful’ to watch and ‘stonewalling’, when in reality mostly all hearings of this sort are exactly the same. I don’t know what they expected to get from these hearings. Perhaps they wanted the fake news words in the Washinton Post acted out on television, like one of their Broadway plays? In the real world, these hearings are nothing more than red herrings.
There’s a reason why I quarantined all Chinese stocks into one pile dubbed ‘Chinese burritos’ in Exodus. I view them all as one unit, disgracefully mocking markets with their presence. Back in the old days, I’d play ‘chinese lotto’ in an attempt to catch one of these trailblazers before the regulators shut the fun down.
Case in point: WINS
In China, they take their WINS seriously.
Do not bother to wonder what this company does for a living. The stock was $20 a few short days ago and now it’s north of $200. Naturally, the stock was just halted by regulators and everyone’s money will now be held hostage by mysterious forces. Nevertheless, people had fun taking the shot.
The Stocktwits message board is replete with greasy traders grateful for not getting caught in the maelstrom.
