Ford Pays $200k For a Tesla Model X, $55k Over Sticker

It was a limited edition, founders series, car. The Ford Motor company paid up to spy on the competition, paying about $200k for the latest Tesla suv.

These cars are ridiculous. I want one.

“Wow, I hope that investment pays off in some good intelligence,” Michelle Krebs, senior analyst for researcher Autotrader.com, said of the premium Ford paid. “If you’re going to be one of the early buyers, you’re probably going to pay well over list. But that’s significant.”

“We’re going to definitely see more electrification and light-weighting,” Krebs said. “Those are the things I suspect Ford would be taking special note of as they develop their sport utilities of the future.”

Tesla’s first Model Xs are limited-edition Founders Series — fewer than 100 of them were made — that typically go to board members and close friends of the company like Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Those are followed by the Signature Series models, which require a $40,000 deposit from customers and start at $132,000. The window sticker price on the all-wheel-drive Model X P90D that Ford purchased is $144,950, including the $10,000 Ludicrous Speed Upgrade that boasts a 0-to-60 miles per hour time of 3.2 seconds.

It’s worth mentioning that without the economic system called capitalism, none of this would be happening now. The fucking electric car, an SUV no less, can get up to 60mph in 3.2 seconds?!

By the way, the government is mandating cars run at 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. I like the direction the automakers are going, especially TSLA.

Futures were lower by 60; now they’re slightly higher. This banana run we’ve been on has instilled a sense of entitlement amongst traders, something unseen since 2013. Both 2014 & 2015 were abysmal years, both taxing and filled with misdirection. Aside from the first 5 weeks of 2016, this has been a bullish traders nirvana.

Traders have enjoyed melt up after melt up, with very little repercussions or reprisals. There have been very few pullbacks since February and people are starting to get bold again. The run in crude stocks, as oil idles itself in the low $40s, is absolutely asinine. I see what’s taking place in the market and can’t help but to shake my head–because I know what’s coming next.

None of this propping up can hold. The recovery story is a lie, always has been. It was fun playing the POMO game, pretending that the economy was pistol hot–but it wasn’t. Financial engineering can only take you so far. All hope and responsibility for a prosperous economy has been laid to rest at the feet of the federal reserve. There is nothing left for our politicians to do, as they’ve spent the treasury and more. Fiscal disaster is all but a certainty for a number of western economies, as well as China.

The prime risk to the market is recession during a time of stark fiscal uncertainty, the sort of debt to GDP that disables government from stimulus spending. Sadly, that’s the position we’re in, defenseless spendthrifts hanging onto every word of our Fed overlords, who all but control our economy and country by controlling the supply of money.

Does this seem healthy to you?

It might be a councidence, or not. But something tells me the Chinese don’t want Amercia to become great again.

Trump wins big; China’s stock market slams into a cement wall and explodes.

“The fear of a January plunge is back,” said Wei. “We haven’t heard anything particular for the decline and it’s strange and surprising that the market is dropping at such a fast and steep rate.”

U.S. futs are off a bit and WTI is trading lower by 3%.

This was quite entertaining. I counted 127 lies, while smoking my pipe.

Trump was in NY today and he gave a speech.

Interestingly enough, Governor John Kasich won 2nd place in NY today, triumphant and well positioned to receive the RNC coronation this July.

PENDING: We are eagerly awaiting Kasich’s victory speech and will be posting it as soon as it concludes.

New York isn’t feeling the Bern, apparently.

The Hilderbeast has mudstomped Bernie into a fucking hot dog stand and he’s been left there ever since, eating sauerkraut sandwiches, talking to himself about ‘fucking banks’ this and ‘fucking billionaires’ that.

With 59% of the vote in, Hillary is up 59% to 40%, in a regular knee-slapping beat down, primordial in nature, arcane in practice.

With 25% of precincts reporting, iBankCoin can comfortably predict that Ohio’s Governor John ‘Mr. Rogers’ Kasich has won second place in the New York primary, humiliating Ted ‘LYIN’ Cruz in what can only be described as a George Washington-esque landslide.

Before Kasich gives his much awaited for victory speech, it is rumored that LYIN Ted Cruz is holed up in his hotel room, crying like an illegal Cuban immigrant stuck in a capsized migration boat en route to Florida.

Long live J. Kasich. God bless President Kasich.

Apex technology and PAG Asia capital led a consortium to acquire the legendary Lexington, KY hardware company, in a deal valued at $3.6 billion. Shareholders will enjoy a 15% or so premium tomorrow, as the deal was agreed upon at $40.50 in an all cash deal.

“This is an exciting transaction that Lexmark’s board of directors believes is in the best interests of our shareholders,” Lexmark Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul Rooke said in the statement. “The transaction will benefit our customers and provide new opportunities for our employees.”

Aside from the mundane printer, Lexmark specializes in a wide swath of security applications for the U.S. govt and justice system, including court case management, health benefits exchange software, public assistance, application automation, professional licensing boards, public safety, law enforcement as well as the DMV.

Big win for the dog eaters in Beijing.

After Doha, crude was buttressed by the Kuwaiti oil strike, which removed 1.7 million barrels of daily crude production off the markets. It was a very conveniently timed strike. Well, all of that ended this evening, as the people with money decided it was time to permit the people without money to get back to work. Production will be in ‘full retard’ mode immediately.

Production in northern Kuwait returned to normal and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. restarted units in the country’s southeast, helping boost overall output, the oil industry’s spokesman, Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, said in a post on Instagram earlier. Output was 1.1 million barrels a day on Sunday, when the 13,000-member union started the stoppage.

Before the walkout, Kuwait was pumping 2.81 million barrels a day last month, making it the fourth-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The initial decline of 1.7 million barrels a day from March levels surpassed the surplus in global supply.

WTI is off by 1.7% in the overnight session.

The $5 billion fund, down almost 10% for the year, is granting the plebians a very generous request. After year’s of keeping the fund’s door closed to outside money (12/10/13), the pretentious assholes at Sequoia are reopening their completely idiotically managed fund to new investors.

“We’ve had a number of requests from investors who would like to get into the fund at these levels, so we are considering recommending to the board that Sequoia reopen in the proximate future,” manager David Poppe wrote in a letter to shareholders posted on the fund’s website today.

Like morons, they placed like fucking 40% of the fund in VRX, becoming its largest and biggest bagholder. It’s astounding to me to see this fund still open, let alone in a position to accept new money. Their multi-million share VRX position is down 80% since they last declared the position.

Along these lines, VRX is no longer a large position of theirs, since they almost completely wiped out on it. They’re down to the tune of $1.6 billion on it. Now, their big plays are TJX, ORLY and FAST.

Who’s ready to sign up?