Apple Unveils iPhone 7 and Airpods; Shares Spike a Little on the News

These are innovative products out of Apple. The new airpods will move people off wired headphones, out of the 1970s and into the renaissance. Also, they revealed the iPhone 7plus will retail out at $769, flaunting storage up to 256gb (the fuck).

Here is a photo dump that I stole from the good folks at Recode–because they do good work and I really don’t give a shit about this topic.

Apple’s share price is responding positively to this news.

The brand has been soiled, quite literally. At a recent foray into the King of Prussia mall, I questioned several of the store clerks about Chipotle, and almost in unison, these millennials were revolted by the specter of even mentioning CMG.

However, for the day, shares of CMG are skyrocketing higher by 5.6%–on the news that failed hedge fund manager and profligate media whore for his bad ideas took a 9.9% stake.

Stifel, however, is not eating the proverbial burrito and have taken this opportunity to shit on the shares of CMG, as well as the entire Pershing Square office.

“Pershing Position Creates Excellent Selling Opportunity”

Reiterate Sell Rating Following Announcement of Bill Ackman Purchase.

We emphatically reiterate our Sell rating on CMG shares following news that Pershing Square has started a 9.9% activist position. We cannot fathom Pershing’s operational or mathematical investment thesis. Frankly, we predict that Pershing’s activist effort is most likely to accelerate and further assure CMG’s “tail operational risk” of increasing management and hourly turnover rates (the number one determinate of a restaurant’s profitability). Mathematically, we continue to assert that to justify CMG’s current $414/sh valuation, some combination of the following two irrational assumptions must be made:

Mathematically, we continue to assert that to justify CMG’s current $414/sh valuation, some combination of the following two irrational assumptions must be made:

(1) that the economic laws of diminishing returns (market-maturation curves for Restaurants) do not apply to the Chipotle Mexican Grill brand; and/or

(2) that the mathematical laws of Discounted-Cash-Flow do not apply to CMG, the stock.

The analyst’s 12-month price target for the stock is $215.

Indeud.

Ralph has been looking at charts for fifty years. In his words, he’s never seen such charts in all of his years, whereby the ‘foot soldiers’ of the market led the Godfathers higher. Normally, it’s the other way around–but I digress.

He’s very bullish. He’s looking for a fucking breakout to the upside, because everything is breaking out and looking good on the charts.

But is this rhetoric true?

The market is higher by about 7% for the year. According to Exodus, here is the breakdown of median gains categorized by market cap.

Over $50b: +11.6%
Between $10-50b: +12%
Between $5-10b: +13.3%
Between $1-5b: +13.1%
Between $500m-1b: +11%
Between $250m-500m: +9.8%

What do you know? Ralph hit the nail on the head.

Interestingly, the SPY is higher by 8.5% and the QQQ is lagging, +5.8%

In their pitch to psychophant followers today, aside from showcasing material improvements in the water proofing of the iWatch, the Apple team unveiled (be-fucking-HOLD) Pokemon Go would be available to play on the device by the end of 2016.

On this news, the crowd went fucking nuts. Paper confetti rained down like a chorus of pure glory and joy and everyone celebrated by buying shares of NTDOY–which are higher by a braindead 24% for the session–or $6 billion in market cap.

What does this mean?

Frankly, it means nothing. For every iWatch that you don’t buy, it would’ve possessed the capability to capture digital monsters, whereby you could then parlay said monsters into heated and pitched battles to attain ‘gyms’–which would then be almost immediately conquered by fellow gamers–continuing a virtual loop of inane depravity unseen since the days of Babylon.

Note: Shareholders of Apple don’t give a shit about this infantile news. Shares of AAPL are lower for the session.

This guy is quite the bear.  Everyone is out in the pool, swimming naked and drunk and also fat and slothlike, and El-Erian is trying to tell people to stop. Back in 2007, the phrase ‘moral hazard’ was tossed around a lot, as investors plowed assets into CDOs and CLOs. The result of that foray into high yield mortgage was the very end of western finance as we knew it. This go around, the low rate environment is wrought with all sorts of malinvestment, none of which are being discussed, because, well…new highs.

Every once in a blue moon you hear a guy, with the bonafides and the credentials to support his claims, and it rings true and loud– like an air raid siren. And with the benefit of hindsight, you found it worthwhile. I suspect this is one of those clips.

According to Opensecrets.org, Goldman Ball Sachs employees are some of the top donors for the H. Clinton roadshow. Having established a firm bias in the race, the sages at Goldman decided it was a good idea to change their firm rules, bend and twist them, in order to prohibit donations to the Trump-Pence team. The idiotic result from their stupidity is horrendous media coverage and a further tarring of Clinton as Goldman’s anointed candidate.

“Effective Thursday, September 1, all partners across the firm are considered ‘restricted persons’ as defined by the firm’s Policy on Personal Political Activities in the US. As outlined below, restricted persons are prohibited from engaging in political activities and/or making campaign contributions to candidates running for state and local offices, as well as sitting state and local officials running for federal office,” the bank wrote to its employees.

The step aims to prevent “inadvertently violating pay-to-play rules, particularly the look-back provision, when partners transition into roles covered by these rules,” according to Goldman.

Goldman said the measure was “meant to minimize potential reputational damage caused by any false perception that the firm is attempting to circumvent pay-to-play rules, particularly given partners’ seniority and visibility.”

“Among the type of donations that are banned are any federal candidate who is a sitting state or local official (e.g., governor running for president or vice president, such as the Trump/Pence ticket, or mayor running for Congress), including their Political Action Committees (PACs),”

Since America fucking despises Goldman, this is being viewed as a very positive development for Trump.

This is the biggest nothing burger in the history of nothing burgers. But Brian Nowak woke up today wanting to be talked about, perhaps interviewed on the teevee, so he moved the goal post on his FB target to an absurd $160 from $150, in spite of the fact that he concedes that ad load growth is likely to slow.

Via The Fly on the Wall:

Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said he disagrees with worries that an ad load growth slowdown in the second half will lead to material revenue deceleration at Facebook, saying he expects user, engagement, and pricing growth to drive revenue and adjusted EPS in 2017 to top Street estimates by 6% and 10%, respectively. While Nowak concedes that ad load growth is likely to slow, he tells investors in a research note that Facebook’s large and growing scale and engagement are even more important and that ad pricing has room to grow. The analyst, who raised his price target on Facebook shares to $160 from $150, keeps an Overweight rating on the shares.

The fucking primadonna analysts on Wall Street, who stock the stables at the investment banks, are a zealotry sort who occupy a very low profession as a whole. They’re professional clowns who masquerade as pseudo intellectuals, carrying water for the team, whilst possessing a faux ethical code of conduct that is laughably dismissed at every cocktail party from NYC to San Francisco.

Good morning.

The always humorous and eccentric Fed’s Williams said in a speech this evening that the grim economic data were nothing more than transient cancer bubbles, floating in the ether–away from infecting the host. He approved of the current economic situation, pointing towards a “solid domestic economy with good momentum going forward.”

More than that, he doubled down on his bullishness, saying “I remain confident about the road we are on.”

With regard to the arduous topic of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, Fed’s Williams broached the topic, flippantly suggesting that they start to ‘normalize’ “preferably sooner rather than later.”

Yes, indeud. As you were, chaps.

Update: In Q&A, Fed’s Williams, likely whilst drinking a glass of chardonnay, said he does not worry that a flat or inverted US yield curve signals a recession. Everything is fine.

Go ahead lads, keep buying stocks and not bonds. Whatever would make you want to stop? If it feels good, do it in the road.

The hypocrisy is strong with this one.

Earlier today, Washpo waterboy for the Clinton campaign penned a manifesto, declaring that the media, particularly Drudge, needed to stop discussing Hillary Clinton’s health. After all, ‘the issues’ were more important and discussing her health was ‘wacky’ and beneath the Trump campaign because it’s a conspiracy theory. The sort of theory that sometimes makes you scratch your head and wonder, what the fuck is going on here?

Hillary is now being shadowed by a man walking around with a diazepam pen–which is commonly used for people prone to seizures.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I will not pretend to be sanctimonious or cast aspersions on this Washpo blogger, who obviously has an agenda. But he did question McCain’s health in 2008. His fucking twitter timeline is proof of his wanton hypocrisy.

So fuck off, @TheFix.

Quite literally, this is bad news for shareholders of CMG. Take this inane 5.5% after hours bounce and run for the hills.

This is the 3rd high profile stake by Ackman over the past two years, the first two striking out miserably in HLF short and VRX long. My best guess, if Ackman strikes out with CMG, it’s lights out for Pershing Square.

The Issuer is a leading fast casual restaurant company that the Reporting Persons believe has a strong brand, differentiated offering, enormous growth opportunity, and visionary leadership. The Reporting Persons believe that the Issuer’s Common Stock is undervalued and is an attractive investment. The Reporting Persons intend to engage in discussions with the Issuer and Issuer’s management and board of directors, other stockholders of the Issuer and other interested parties that may relate to the governance and board composition, business, operations, cost structure, management, assets, capitalization, financial condition, strategic plans, and the future of the Issuer.”

Ackman’s 9.9% stake in CMG is causing idiots to chase it in the after hours, as if this man had a good track record with big investments.