U.S. FUTURES CAREEN LOWER

Dow futures are down by 150 some odd points and the NASDAQ are lower by about 50. The NIKKEI is down a swift 200 and China is flat–because it’s manipulated.

Over in Europe, DAX futures are lower by 1.43%. It’s starting to look like a grim evening, that might become increasingly grimmer as the night goes on.

This guy went onto the teevee to espouse his technical analysis witch-craft. Although I feel the market wants lower, my core thesis is that it will not fall apart, in an unorganized fashion. We should stair-step lower, with a certain calm normality, reminiscent of the good olde days of 1973.

Dear Mother Market,

I used to love waking up to your grandness. Like a fat pillow under my tired head, after a long days work, you’ve provided me with the comfort– also the means, entertainment and intellectual complexities to keep me interested for nearly two decades. But now you’re boring, old, and stupid. Every time I look at you, I want to sell you short and kick you down a flight of elevator stairs, lined with spicy ketchup.

While some traders still believe in you, I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re nothing but a fiction, a summer dream on a sandy beach. When everyone wakes up, they will find themselves inside of a matter-less blackhole, being reduced into nothingness. While some might call you “evil” or even pernicious, I just think that you’re mean spirited and cruel.

To that end, I wish you nothing but harmful tidings and everlasting misery.

Yours truly,

Le Fly

I recall musing at the market, on the phone with a colleague, circa 2009. The world was ending, or at least my world. Western finance, as I knew it, was about to conclude. Our country had gone from entrepreneurial Dutch merchants to Dick Fuld in less than 400 years; and it was ending. I had been short stocks, making a fucking fortune, all for nothing. After all, what good is money when all of your clients lose their jobs/businesses? What good is money when you can’t buy food because credit dried up and no one trusts one another for payment?

That’s where we were in 2009, before the bottom was put in, at the Devil’s crossing of 666 on the S&P, ushering in a new President Barrack “inverse cowboy” Hussein Obama.

If only there was a way to evaluate the markets without emotion. You know, like a software of market greatness that is able to monitor over 4,000 stocks and ETFs, drill down technical and fundamental readings to properly assess the market without bias.

Hmmm.

In other news, I bought SPY today, a 1/3rd position. I’ll add to it based upon the glory of Exodus.

Nostradamus once said “there will be rumors and rumors of rumors”. This is straight up horseshit, however. And if it’s not, we are all in for a world of wanton pain.

TOKYO — Apple is expected to reduce output of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus by around 30% in the January-March quarter compared with its original plans, a measure that will deal a blow to Japanese and South Korean parts suppliers.

The U.S. company had initially told parts makers to keep production for the quarter at the same level as with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus a year earlier. But inventories of the two models launched last September have piled up at retailers in markets ranging from China and Japan to Europe and the U.S. amid lackluster sales. Customers saw little improvement in performance over the previous generation, while dollar appreciation led to sharp price hikes in emerging markets.

Output will be scaled back to let dealers go through their current stock. Production is expected to return to normal in the April-June quarter, once inventory adjustment is complete. Apple’s products and brand have not lost their appeal, and older models have continued to sell.

It’s from some Japanese website, dubbed NIKKEI. How original. They’re casting mad aspersions like some WW2 Japanese soldier holed up on some island, still waiting to kill Americans.

I don’t believe it, to be truthful. A 30% reduction would mean Tim Cook would have to become straight again and start dating women. You and I both know that’s never going to happen.

Shares of SWKS, AVGO, CRUS and INVN are getting rocked on this rumor.

According to re/code, Twitter is thinking about modifying its 140 character limit to, oh I don’t know, TEN THOUSAND CHARACTERS.

Twitter is building a new feature that will allow users to tweet things longer than the traditional 140-character limit, and the company is targeting a launch date toward the end of Q1, according to multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans. Twitter is currently considering a 10,000 character limit, according to these sources. That’s the same character limit the company uses for its Direct Messages product, so it isn’t a complete surprise.

I am pretty sure I’ll hate and despise Twitter if they expanded the character limit to 10,000. Could you imagine all of the yappers, yapping away without limitation? It’s too much to bear, frankly. I’m going to need some aspirin powder after this blog to relieve me from the headache that I am now enduring, thanks to this rumor.

Oh, by the way, TWTR hit a new low today.

NYC is about to upgrade the telephone booth by transforming the infrastructure into WIFI hotspots. This is actually a pretty big deal, which will entail a lot of construction, laying of fiber optic cable, LED displays, and advertising–lots of it.

The city plans on blanketing all five boroughs with 4,550 pillars over the next four years, and a total of 7,500 phone-booths-of-the-future by 2024. The kiosks are intended to replace the existing, now-outdated phone booth infrastructure. The project involves lining the the city with hundreds of miles of fiber optic cable. When fully operational, in addition to Internet, the stalls will offer free phone calls, USB charging, and a tablet for web browsing. Those who want to hop on the WiFi from their smartphones have access to an encrypted network, which will keep personal information secure from everyone else accessing the public WiFi.

By providing NYC residents with free WIFI, effectively pushing against the carriers, the city is likely to recover much of the ad revenue it lost from the phone booths. Remember all of those ads?

O’Donnell estimates that dozens of kiosks will start lining the city’s streets over the next month, with 510 to be deployed by mid-summer. The Links will be set up along 3rd Avenue in Manhattan up to the South Bronx, on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, in Jamaica, Queens and St. George, Staten Island. The project has already seen delays. The first kiosks were supposed to go up last fall.

Bright 55-inch digital advertising displays that flank the sides of the kiosks will subsidize ad-free Internet browsing, with the stands promising to bring in $500 million in revenue for the city in the first 12 years of the contract. Pay phones brought in $50 million in revenue from ads each year. Link kiosks, however, can offer more targeted, data-driven ads, said O’Donnell. “We can use local data, demographic data, [and] real-time information to display the right message to the right audience,” he said.

I haven’t done any research on this yet, figure out which small companies stand to benefit from this. If successful, I am certain many cities will copy NYC, potentionally leading to a mini-Renaissance in telecom plays.

This is definitely something to monitor in 2016.

Serious question: what premise did all of these firms base their upgrades on? How the fuck do they expect Joe Blow to get long oil stocks now, here, as crude plummets to new lows, the dollar spikes to new highs, and almost $300 billion in distressed basic resource threat looms?

Wait, let me guess? After 2016, a lot of oil and gas debt will be maturing. Since the equity markets are treating them somewhat poorly this past year, down 60%, maybe some of these oil companies are interviewing some investment banks to refinance their debt?

No, you don’t say.

Wait, do you mean to tell me that Wall Street analysts receive marching orders to upgrade stocks based upon prospective investment banking relationships? They’d never do that. No way. That’d be illegal.

In other news, oil is at new lows.

King dollar is on the move higher.

And, according to Exodus, the dollar amount of distressed basic resource debt is nearing $300 billion.

Stocks gave up early gains and are diving lower. However, I am somewhat constructive on a bounce happening today or tomorrow, perhaps lasting for a week, before dropping again. My preferred method of buying dips will be SPY, until further notice.

How about 2?

The benevolent dictators from the Far East have granted mercy upon its people and have bestowed upon them the right to procreate, not once, but twice per family.

How joyous.

A document released by the central government and ruling Communist Party on Tuesday said families would be able to “independently arrange childbearing” under the new policy, without applying for approval.

It is rumored that up to 90 million families will qualify for this extravagance. I am sure the FOXCONN suicide corporation greatly appreciates the specter of being able to recruit from a wider swath of young persons.

This is, inexorably, bullish for Tim Cook and the Apple corporation.

Despite evidence pointing to the contrary, Wall Street’s finest are out in full force today, upgrading oil stocks without regard for sensible thinking.

From Mother Merrill to shithouse firms like Keybanc, analysts are desperately trying to catch lightening in a bottle, swaddling the seasonality waves, for the benefit of us all.

Even CLR, the unhedged lunatics, were upgraded today.

What does this tell us?

Any semblance of a rally in the price of WTI and a massive rally in oil stocks will take place. However, should this trade fail to materialize by the end of January, there will be a lot of bag holders out there. Remember, price has memory and right now there are a lot of trades being placed–betting that oil gets a respite rally.

S&P futures have recovered. Stocks are dying to rally.