Apple Provides Welfare for Finisar, Invests $390 into Company to Ramp Up Production of Chips

Money can do wonders for people, in this case Apple. They could easily buy FNSR and keep operations humming along; but they’d rather just throw some cash at them in order to keep manufacturing going at a steady pace instead of having to deal with managing a poorly run company.

Apple this morning announced the second investment from its $1 billion Advanced Manufacturing Fund, committing $390 million to Finisar.

As a result, Finisar will transform a shuttered, 700,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Sherman, Texas, into a high-tech facility developing VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) chips. These chips enable depth and proximity sensing, helping to power some of Apple’s new features including Face ID, Animoji, and ARKit, which is the set of tools that allow developers to create augmented reality apps.

There are three VCSELs in every iPhone X. VCSEL chips also are used in Apple’s AirPods.

The new facility is expected to open in the second half of next year.

“VCSELs power some of the most sophisticated technology we’ve ever developed and we’re thrilled to partner with Finisar over the next several years to push the boundaries of VCSEL technology and the applications they enable,” Jeff Williams, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement.

Jerry Rawls, Finisar’s CEO, added, “When you combine our proven ability to consistently manufacture exceptional products with our new state-of-the-art Sherman facility, we’re confident we can achieve our shared goal of providing consumers with incredibility exciting features.”

Apple’s investment will also create more than 500 jobs at the new Sherman facility including engineers, technicians and maintenance teams.

Literally welfare.

Shares of FNSR are higher by 27% in the pre-market and we down 36% for the year before this news hit.

You can consider me full blown crypto-Fly now; but not because I want to buy Bitcoin at $16,000 — but because I am enthralled by a brand new investor class that is teeming with exuberance. While I might be stubborn and a little old fashioned (I do smoke a pipe), I’m certainly not an idiot and have a good sense about the general direction of things. I intend to create a suite of financial products and tools for the crypto-space, which will be offered open source (free) to all of those interested. Unlike equities, there is a wide open gap in education and general information about tokens and coins. Being the generous man that I am, I intend to arb that ignorance and make a horse-race out of it. Considering we have over a decade in providing the good folks around here with a top shelf Market Intelligence Platform for equities, fitted with predictive mean reversion algorithms, I believe we are better suited than most to tackle this issue.

Stay tuned for details in the weeks to come.

European markets are flat, but WTI is higher again by 0.7%. I’m thinking there’s something brewing in crude. It might be worthwhile to buy some dog shit oils into Xmas.

Futures are higher and I’m looking at the biggest gambles known to mankind just before year end. Starting 2018, I will most likely invest exclusively via my quantitative tools, making adjustments once per month to reduce churn. The goal here is to automate my retirement. Considering I’m only 41, I have time to develop these methods and strategies. It will be a great help to be actively managing again, which I also intend to do.

Here are some other headlines worth your perusal.

Vail Resorts initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank; tgt $265
Digital Power Corporation launches new business division dedicated to the mining of cryptocurrencies
Honeywell sees FY18 EPS $7.55-7.80 vs $7.79 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate
State Street upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette
O’Reilly Auto upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts
Huntsman resumed with a Overweight at JP Morgan; tgt $36
Accuray downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan
Aimmune Therapeutics initiated with a Overweight at Cantor Fitzgerald; tgt $55
Morgan Stanley upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Keefe Bruyette
Intercept Pharma, Vertex Pharma (VRTX) both initiated with Buy ratings at Deutsche Bank
Honeywell updates Q4 guidance, issues FY18 outlook ahead of investor conference call

Here’s Wolf Blitzer from CNN rejoicing in the victory of ‘Doug Jone the Democrat’ in the ‘ruby red state of Alabama’, defeating the perverted Roy Moore. Quite frankly, and this goes without saying, I am glad the otherwise backward people of Alabama chose to not elect Moore, who is a red flag if I’ve ever seen one.

This is an obvious L for Trump, who retardedly got behind the Moore campaign just after scores of sexual harassment and pedophilia claims were made against the horseback riding redneck from the deepest armpit of America. As a result, futures are sliding a bit here, off by 9 NASDAQS.

The crypto space is pulling in too; but I would’t place much credence behind the pullback since the HODLr’s can’t pull their money out of crypto land even if they wanted to.

When your cryptos are up 50%, but you can't get your money — because shit it halted pic.twitter.com/0G3htcPTps

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) December 12, 2017

I am only doing this to round out 2017 and as soon as 2018 comes ’round, this olde Fly will be calculating Sharpe ratios and building long term portfolios again, eschewing all of this zany speculation. I am comforted by the timing of this bubble, end of year, just before Xmas. It is literally impossible to crash market this time of year, so we might as well shoot first, examine the corpse after the fact.

Having said that, I just bought some PYDS at $2.85. Not much stock, just 20,000 shares.

When it runs up to $6 on news that they too have an interest in crypto, I will sell it and use the proceeds on some other wasteful items.

What do I know about PYDS?

Absolutely nothing.

Yes I can see stocks are higher by 155 Dow points, which, by the way, has a Sharpe ratio of 3.21. But compared to the cryptos, stocks are idiotic pieces of paper floating across a polluted cesspool.

Look at all these gainz.

Over in the stock world, only the crypto proxy plays are worth looking at, such as my MARA. They issued a secondary last night at $5, a solid $1.30 below market prices, and look at the stock. Under normal conditions, that stock would anchor in around $5 — but now she’s flat.

Other proxy plays shooting higher today include RIOT, DPW, PRELF, UEPS, XNET and GCAP. I am long the last two.

Bitcoins are taking a breather this morning, in its stead is Litecoin +28%, Iota +13.5% and Ripple +11%. My favorite crypto, Monaco, is higher by only 3.5%, pedestrian/equity-esque type gains.

WTI is up 0.6% and doesn’t look like it wants lower. The only thing lower is Nasdaq futures, off by 1. The US yield curve is static at 56bps.

Here’s the other headlines.

Northrop Grumman upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan
HCA upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup; Added to Focus List
Columbia Sportswear downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman
Michaels Stores downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank
Imperva downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan
Freeport-McMoRan upgraded to Equal-Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley

I’m up 21% on my MARA position since this morning. You small little fuckers can’t hold my balls, let alone attempt to out crypto me. Building on my newly found success in Bitcoin proxy plays, I stepped in here and bought GROW and XNET with my short sales proceeds realized earlier today.

Fly from 1 month ago would’ve slapped the shit out of today’s Fly for buying said stocks. Then again, Fly from 1 month ago was a god damned loser — moping about the internets, mad at invisibl RARE PEPE’s.

I bought both GROW and XNET because I liked their charts.

Yeah, indeed.

While the run in Bitcoin and cryptos have been on the headlines of every financial publication in the world, a little known sub-sector has been gaining steam. These are little offals that changed their name or business practice to cater to the crypto-markets. These little fuckers, in many regards, have increased in value at a higher rate of return over the past month than many cryptos.

Because I am obsessive and have a terrific community of like minded folks in the hallowed halls of Exodus, I’ve compiled a short list of names that have exposure to the crypto space.

Here’s what I got so far, in addition to their 1 mo returns.

MARA +294%
RIOT +183%
GROW +70%
SRAX +69%
SSC +52%
XNET +7.5%
OSTK +3.5%

SGRP
DPW
PRELF
BTSC
BGGWF
GCAP
DIGAF
GLNNF
BLKCF
TEUM
MGTI

Aside from GBTC, the only other ETF with Bitcoin exposure is ARKK, who owns a little GBTC, as well as other stuff.

Perhaps this is my first light recommendation in the crypto-space; but you should look at Monaco — a financial products company that permits people to use debit cards to make transaction, in addition to buying other cryptos via their app.

Clearly, I have no way to value these companies, since financials are a moot point and buyers of the ‘currency’ do not get a piece of the company, but the buying power for their products.

Of the top coins out there, here are today’s biggest movers.

The days of my swashbuckling are rounding near an end. This sort of sordid trading is for ape-faced degenerates. I’m much happier basing my investments off grander theories, one’s using mathematical formulas and data that I can chew on.

Nevertheless, I covered my NVDA short for nearly a 20 point gain and BAC for a 5% loss. Additionally, I sold my Russian short, RUSS, for breakeven.

The proceeds are in cash and a little MARA. After the new year, I am fairly certain I will cease trading in this manner, for it is for fools and vagrants.