Bob Parker: Italian Banks Need to Be Bailed Out; They Might Fail

Admittedly, I’m a bit of a Bob Parker fan. For years, whenever Bob is on the radio or on my teevee, I stop whatever I’m doing to listen and hang onto every word her says, like a child. Most of the people on the teevee or radio get a Bronx cheer from me. I’ve been known to throw things at the teevee and have often had long, one sided, debates with my car stereo, where I’d tell whichever fuckhead was on the radio how truly stupid he/she was.

But Bob has never disappointed, ever. Like me, he’s always right and he is a blessing to the investment world as one of the few true great minds in all of finance.

In this clip, he describes the magnitude of the Italian banking crisis and how they need a bailout. He also wouldn’t rule out a banking failure of a very large magnitude in the meat ball’d state.

God bless Robert Parker.

SHOTS FIRED.

Here is Donald Trump’s 2016 GOP acceptance speech, in its entirety.

For those of you uninterested in the long version, here is my favorite part of his speech.

On the day after the attacks, the media narrative was one of a confused and deranged man snapping and committing heinous acts of murder against his fellow citizens. They left out the part that he’s from Tunisia or the fact that he did this in the name of his God, on behalf of the most violent religion in the history of mankind. There were numerous stories about how bad of a muslim he was. By golly, he ate pork, had homosexual proclivities, and drank a lot of booze. Therefore, he couldn’t possibly be a soldier of ISIS.

Prosecutor Francois Molins said the five suspects currently in custody face preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in helping the 31-year-old in the July 14 attack in the southern French city.

Molins’ office, which oversees terrorism investigations, opened a judicial inquiry Thursday into a battery of charges for the suspects, including complicity to murder and possessing weapons tied to a terrorist enterprise.

The suspects are four men two Franco-Tunisians, a Tunisian and an Albanian and one woman of dual French-Albanian nationality.

“Investigations have not only confirmed the premeditated nature of the attack, but allowed us to establish that (Bouhlel) had support and accomplices in the preparation and execution of his criminal act.”

Examination of the terrorist’s mobile phone showed he had taken pictures at a Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice last year, as well as on a concert on the Promenade des Anglais on July 17, 2015.

On April 4, another Tunisian, Chokri C, 37, had sent Bouhlel a Facebook message reading: “Load the truck with 2,000 tonnes of iron… release the brakes my friend and I will watch.”

Hours after the attack, the same man filmed the bloody scene on the promenade.

There’s the truth. This was a well thought out plan, something that was discussed and strategized for more than a year, by agents of ISIS. Anything to suggest otherwise is a bald faced lie.

Bossman from UKIP, Nigel Farage, offered Trump some ideas on how to defeat the establishment, corporate whore beholden to big, globalized, business, who don’t give a shit about the plight of ordinary folks aka those with net worths less than $50 million.

Also, he touched on how the EU project, which was designed to contain the devils in Germany after WW2 has indeed failed. The devils are out and about, controlling every facet of Europe’s political system, forcing migrants down the throats of the entire continent.

Due to the invasion of migrants spilling into Austria in search of milk and honey, the government has unveiled a plan to build a large, reaching fence, more than 100km long, in order to keep them out. Said wall will be monitored by troops and police with angry dogs. The metrosexuals in Brussels are very upset by this and have expressed their dismay with both Austria and Hungary, who also have a wide, reaching, fence to keep out the barbarian hordes.

Austrian declares this new fence plan will make their border ‘impregnable’.

State officials have reached agreements with hundreds of landowners along the 100km stretch of border which will allow the fence to be put up in record time should the number of refugees increase again, according to a police spokesman.

Austria is on the Balkan migration route to the ‘promised lands’ of Germany and Sweden, where most asylum seekers arriving in Europe want to settle and start a better life.

At one point last year the country was brought to its knees by thousands of people crossing its borders every day, but the numbers have tailed off significantly since the EU signed its migrant deal with Turkey.

Neighbour Hungary is no stranger to border fences, having angered EU officials by building its own 175km fence along its border with Serbia last year when the migrant crisis was at its peak.

But relations between Hungary and Austria have been strained in recent months, with Vienna demanding that Budapest take back several thousand migrants under the Dublin agreement – a request which has so far been refused.

Do you know what’s better than a border fence? A border wall.

Learn the lessons of history and understand that is was the walled cities of Hungary that kept the Mongolian Golden Horde from conquering all of Europe. They were plagued by these fortress cities and left outside to play with their horses, starving like morons.

The Lord Sith has surpassed Warren Buffett and his dated portfolio of old economy companies, all the while taking a chainsaw to the retail industry en masse. His net wealth now stands at a paltry $65 billion, hardly enough money to fund the annual military budget of China.

Congratulations Jeff Bezos. You’ve come a long way from some asshole selling books from the basement of your mother’s cellar.

Let’s digest these numbers, shall we?

The company missed on both top and bottom lines. Their revenues plunged by 16% over last year. Comps were down 23% v expectations of 20%. Food costs increased 110bps. Yet, in spite of all this, the company continues to leverage into a bad business model by opening more stores. They’ll open another 230 stores for all of 2016, all the while people ignore their shops as denizens of poison.

• Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.87 per share, $0.03 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.90; revenues fell 16.6% year/year to $998.4 mln vs the $1.05 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
• Chipotle Mexican Grill reports Q2 comps of -23.6% vs -20.5% ests vs +4.3% last year.
• Q2 Restaurant level operating margin was 15.5%, a decrease from 28.0%. Food costs were 34.2% of revenue, an increase of 110 basis points as compared to
  the second quarter of 2015.
• Guidance: For FY16 management expects the following: 220 – 235 new restaurant openings; An effective full year tax rate of ~38.6%

The stock is actually higher in the after hours, led by crazy people. I suspect analyst will not be as kind in the morning.

It isn’t a disaster. But one needs to ponder how far SBUX can go, when in every city in America there is a sundry of superior, local, coffee shops springing up almost on a daily basis. We are living through the peak coffee days. BEHOLD.

“Starbucks record Q3 performance, highlighted by strong 7% comp growth and record revenues and profits in China and 18% year-over-year growth in our Starbucks Rewards loyalty program, demonstrates the strength and resilience of the Starbucks brand and business around the world,” said Starbucks chairman and ceo Howard Schultz. “As we enter Q4 and approach fiscal 2017, we have clear line of sight to returning our U.S. business to historic levels of comp sales growth which had been at or above 5% for the 25 consecutive quarters prior to Q3.”

“Starbucks third quarter results once again reflect strong revenue and profit growth and represent the first non-holiday quarter in which our operating income exceeded $1 billion,” said Scott Maw, cfo. “We are confident in the correctness of the str$SBUXategic, operational and digital moves we outlined today and remain steadfast in our commitment to deliver significant, profitable growth over the long term.”

SBUX met earnings expectations, but missed on revenues by $100 million.

Reports Q3 (Jun) earnings of $0.49 per share, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues rose 7.3% year/year to $5.24 bln vs the $5.34 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Comp Store Sales rise 4% globally (Expectations were for approx 5.2-5.6%)
Non-GAAP operating margin expanded 30 basis points over Q3 FY15 non-GAAP, to a Q3 record 19.8%
Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.54-0.55 vs. $0.55 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Co issues in-line guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $1.88-1.89 vs. $1.89 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Full year consolidated revenue growth now expected to be approximately 10% on a 52 week basis (from 10%+), the 53rd week expected to add approximately 2%
Full year global comparable store sales growth now expected to be mid-single digits (from somewhat above mid-single digits)
Now expecting approximately 1,900 net new store openings in the fiscal year
FY16 operating margin is expected to increase slightly versus prior year:
Americas: now expected to increase slightly over prior year (from moderate improvement)
China/Asia Pacific: now expected to increase slightly over prior year (from roughly flat)
EMEA: now expected to be flat to prior year (from approaching 15%)
Channel Development: now expect strong expansion versus prior year (from moderate improvement)

The stock is off 5% in the after hours.

Jeff Currie from Goldman Sachs doesn’t want to rock the boat. He likes gold, but doesn’t really like it. He thinks crude can trade a little higher, but there are near term risks to the downside. Any cursory research would tell Jeff that these ball-less calls are meaningless. We both know volatility is abundant in the commodity sector. There isn’t a chance in red hell that they will remain range bound for the next 6-12 months.

A reckoning is coming. Either crude explodes to the upside, leaving a trail of dead bears strewn in his wake, or it’s going to collapse again–amidst the fury of the flames that have been stoked for the better part of the past twenty years of corporatism.

Ho-hum. The market will need to go down by one thousand to get me interested in end of days scenarios again. Most of us are too busy trying to figure out where Hillary Clinton is hiding her 666 tattoo, than whether or not stocks are fully fucking valued at 19x earnings. The whole risk off portfolio convoy of ideas is working in harmonious synchrony now. The Yen is lifting. WTI is down. Bonds are lifting, as well as gold and utility stocks.

On the other end of the see-saw is stocks. Airlines are dreadfully lower. Perhaps people are starting to get the gist that islamic terrorism is something that is accelerating and they’re opting for more road trips? Doubtful.

The truth is, sadly, very few of you are serious men. You’re mostly face painted clowns, jumping in and out of cars, with attention spans the size of beetles.

Markets are Ted Cruz’n for a bruisn’. Behold the 3:30 ramp, for we are going to destroy it today.