$SNAP SHAREHOLDERS THANOS’d IN AFTER-HOURS MISS; TIM COOK’S SMART PHONE SHOPPE WINS AGAIN

On one hand there is SNAP, getting helmeted in after hours because no one uses the app anymore.

Snap reports EPS in-line, misses on revs and DAU (14.13 -0.20)

Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.17 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.17); revenues rose 54.2% year/year to $230.7 mln vs the $244.57 mln Capital IQ Consensus, driven by growth in Snap Ads, and down 19% sequentially, primarily due to seasonality and the redesign.

Daily Active Users (DAU) grew from 166 million in Q1 2017 and 187 mln in 4Q17 to 191 million vs. 194 million estimate.

The stock is down by 17% in the after-hours and I’m certain some poor option holder will, ironically, lose HALF his investment tomorrow.

On the other hand, AAPL is up sharply on better than expected results.

Apple beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; guides Q3 revs above consensus; adds $100 bln to buyback, raises dividend 16% (169.10 +3.84)

Reports Q2 (Mar) earnings of $2.73 per share, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.68; revenues rose 15.6% year/year to $61.14 bln vs the $60.94 bln Capital IQ Consensus; gross margins of 38.3% versus 38.5% ests (guidance 38.0-38.5%)

iPhone shipments 52.2 mln versus 52 mln ests & 50.8 mln last year.

iPad shipments 9.1 mln versus 8.8 mln ests & 10.2 mln last year; Mac shipments 4.1 mln versus 4.1 mln ests & 4.2 mln last year

Americas rev +17% to $24.8 bln; Europe +9% to $13.85 bln; China +21% to $13.0 bln; Japan +22% to $5.5 bln, other Asia/Pac +4% to $3.96 bln.

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $51.5-53.5 bln vs. $51.51 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; gross margins of 38.0-38.5% versus 38.4% ests vs 38.5% last year.

“Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week in the March quarter, just as they did following its launch in the December quarter. We also grew revenue in all of our geographic segments, with over 20% growth in Greater China and Japan.”

Adds $100 bln to share repurchase; raises dividend 16% to $0.73/share

There was a lot of chatter around Apple missing, due to semi-conductor weakness — which blamed poor smartphone sales. Apparently, that was all fake news.

It’s over MatchFAGS, literally. Swipe yourselves the fuck out of the business — because your MTCH position is now worth eggshells.

My 5th grade teacher used to say shit like ‘that’s how the cookie crumbles’ when something went terribly wrong in class. For you Tinder using motherllamas — erase your profile and app now. Zuckerberg and Facebook are now taking over.

Ancillary victim, IAC, parent company of MTCH, RETK as well.

Chances of recovery: zero.

If you want to laugh, watch this shit. Funny as fuck.

These motherfuckers are fixing to lose you a great sum of money again.

Year to date, cocoa is up 54%, mostly due to fucked up weather in Africa — coupled with the fact that hipsters are digging dark chocolate in bulk. Other commodities that are springing higher is Wheat +15%, Oil +13%, Corn +10%, and Soybeans +6%.

Face it. While you’ve been dicking around with MUH stocks, raw commodities have been the shit.

On the other side of the ledger, however, is Sugar -22% (blame hipsters), Lithium -15%, Palladium -11%, and Livestock -10% (kill all vegans).

After all of this horseplay, the sages from Goldman Ballsachs emerge to cast a great ruinous ruin upon your household.

Goldman Sachs strategists have become even more bullish on commodities and say the “strategic case for owning commodities has rarely been stronger.”

“We believe the macro backdrop for commodities is as good as we have seen in years, suggesting large allocations to the sector to benefit from such returns,” the strategists wrote.

The party will end when inflationary pressures help lay the ground work for a recession.

“History, however, suggests it will be a recession, potentially aided by the
inflationary pressures created by commodity prices that will end this commodity bull
market,” they wrote.

Goldman Sachs commodities strategists, led by Jeff Currie, have been overweight commodities since 2016, but they see a solid backdrop for gains to continue as inventories decline and demand grows.

“Robust late-cycle growth is depleting global supply chains,” they wrote. “As the business cycle deepens and inflationary concerns push interest rates higher, cross-asset correlations with commodities decline and the diversification benefits of owning commodities rises with higher rates.”

Emerging markets could help extend the business cycle, giving global demand “more runway.” .

They also note that the geopolitical risks have risen in commodity producers Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Trade policy risks also add to the inflationary pressure in commodities.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘those are some evil motherfuckers out there, trying to take my cheddar again’ and you’d be correct. Well, not quite. It’s a conspiracy theory. There are two possible outcomes here: either Goldman is incredibly good and evil or incompetent and wrong.

What do you think?

Thank you POTUS for making the dollar rise against the evil euro this time of year — just before the summer vacation season. With the dollar rising vs the euro, we’ll be able to afford additional items whilst sauntering in the ancient ruins of Europe and for that we are all eternally thankful.

The downside to all of this win is absolute rape in the gold and oil markets. But those people suck any ways, so who cares right?

Off to sell my NUGT.

I just got back from walking my fucking dog, also known as the unfriendly neighborhood coyote. She was surprisingly calm this morning, having on lunged at one jogger and chased two squirrels up trees. My leash is extended, so she really gets a good running start until the inertia of the leash stops her in flat in her tracks. Mostly I am tired and cranky when I start walking the damn thing, but by the time I get back home I’m in a good mood because she’s so damned aggressive. It makes my black heart tingle with pride.

S&P futures are doing nothing at all right now. You might as well close out the browser after you’re done reading this shit and go back to bed.

By the way, I haven’t even started the last part of my three part book series. I’ve been in the process of doing something for months and haven’t allowed myself to write or read anything until its done. I might continue where the story left off — but I’m also tempted to let some time elapse because I think what I’m doing right now is interesting and might make for some good reading one day.

Gold and oil are sharply lower this morning, and also cryptos. Maybe it has something to do with dollars being up 0.4% v the euro. Or it’s more nothing. You decide.

After I quit writing this post, I’ll go into Exodus and compile the picks for this month’s portfolio. Then, perhaps in about an hour or two, I might go for a drive to get some plants for the yard. It’ll be 85 all week and I haven’t gardened in two years. Last night, around 4:30am, right before I went to sleep, I ordered a hedge trimmer. I haven’t hedged the bushes in two years either and they’re starting to look retarded, so I’ll need to address that soon. I used to have the landscaper do all of that shit for me. Hell, I used to have people in this house almost every day of the week, fixing this or that, inspecting and prodding. I think I was just spending money to spend it. I’m over that phase now and feel like doing shit myself again.

I’m getting off track here. Go back to sleep.

Trading is fun — but if you don’t have the time or the talent, quantitative strategies are by far the best path for your long term investments. The algorithms can simply do more than what you or I can do. If you pride yourself on being a great trader, you can very easily duplicate your strategies with software to automate investments.

It’s 2018 people. You should be living a life of leisure, having your money make money for you. Quit being a trading slave faggot.

For the month of April, Exodus netted +1%, 15bps better than SPY. Year to date, it has beaten the market every single month — in spite of defensive positions in GLD and TLT being executed.

Most of you are independent traders and I get the notion of wanting to get your hands dirty and swing for the fences. But there are also some of you who hire retarded advisors who sit behind a desk and bark at you to buy SPY — because MUH no one can beat the market. Untrue and I can prove it to you.

Before the end of the year, I want all of you to fire your antiquated brokers and taking control of your investments — the way God intended.

Real comedy. Fun fact, Jonathan Winters was the voice of Papa Smurf.

You thought you were going to make a lot of money today, but instead was entreated to a reversal and acceleration to the downside.

How does it feel?

Markets were more or less flat for the month of April. The correction in the semis is taking a toll on techFAGS, who are accustomed to nothing less than luxury and pleasure. Times are about to get hard, jailhouse hard, for the month of May beckons and all of the senior traders are off to their 500ft yachts, leaving junior at the trading turret to spaz out at the first sign of hardship.

My Quant account did well and I’ll have the results later on tonight, pretty much in line with the markets. My positioning in my trading account is aggressive now — betting on a forlorn journey into the unknown — rates set to collapse alongside stocks. Also, I’m betting on humiliation in the biotech sector, utterly destroying all of the fake doctors who think they’re chemists just because they can pronounce the esoteric names of drugs and know their way around a periodic table.

Markets will burn and with it confidence and the American way of life.

In other news, I’m super bullish on cryptos here.

There’s nothing you can do about it. Smart phone demand sucks and that trend is only going to worsen. Meanwhile, valuations in the semi space has risen to retard levels. You’d be wise to head back into your room, clean it, and then put on your SOXS.

The Semis are in correction territory. Prove me wrong.

Your SOXS

Well, what are you waiting for? Put them on.

Blohnald Drumpkin has been dying to extricate the United Steaks out of the Iranian nuclear agreement, but hasn’t done it yet. Firstly, a nation should never go back on its agreements, otherwise future agreements will be impossible to trust. Think Mars Attacks and shaking this guy’s hand.

Over the weekend, missiles from the west (US, Britain or Israel) smoked out a Syrian weapons depot, killing dozens of Iranian soldiers in the process.

Now we have this shit — Israel’s PM making a corporate styled presentation, showing Iran lied about ceasing their nuclear ambitions.

Assuming Bibi is correct, the next logical step in all of this is trashing the treaty and of course preparing for war with Iran. For Israel, this makes sense, since their neighbors aren’t too keen on being friendly to them. For us, it means more disaster — needless conflict in the Middle East, billions spent on killing people who do not have issues with us. More of the same.

Markets have fallen off the table here, but oil has increased in price, now nearing $69 WTI.

This news is having a desirable effect on my portfolio, with SOXS and LABD gunning higher. Also, with strength in cryptos, my OSTK is higher. Over in ICO land, I bought some ENG to go along with my STORJ, ELF, INS, and ETH.

There are zero positive outcomes to war with Iran-Syria-Russia. Should Trump get tricked into this fucking boondoggle, you’d be wise to sell all of your stocks and get long oil futures.

I sold VERI about a week or so ago at $17.23 for a small loss. I thought I was smart selling it when I did — because obviously the market was heading lower and anyone holding onto it after I sold it was in for a harsh lashing with a cat ‘o nines.

Today the stock is above $21 and all of the longs are bragging about being cool, making money, and building extensions on their homes. I want extensions on my home too, you know.

An Idiot

Diving superficially shallow into the pool, I enacted a spartan keyword search in Exodus for “Artificial Intelligence” and set my eyes upon a cheap Chinese stock dubbed SSC. I’ve traded this offal before and made money. It’s also a blockchain play, which really means they’ve got nothing going on.

So, I bought the stock here, in hopes that the AI craze will spill over into it and I too can build an extension on my house.