Erdogan, from an undisclosed location, took to his Facetime to make a plea to his psychotic followers to protest the coup. The army claims to have taken control of the government and have detained some of the leaders. The pro-Erdogan people are still talking shit on CNN and the anchors there seem to be suggesting the coup has been foiled by a popular uprising.
The jury is out on that. Erdogan is an asshole of the first magnitude, a man who has taken Turkey into an Islamist direction. At a minimum, this might foil their attempts to get approval to become part of the EU, or not!
The pro-ISIS government of Erdogan is finished. The Turkish military has had enough of his horseshit. They’re claiming to have taken control over the government, detained the leadership, in order to reinstate human rights and democracy.
The Istanbul Ataturk International Airport is taken over by the military. Flights have been halted.
A statement out of the government suggests something is awry and it doesn’t look good for the Erdogan clan.
“Some people illegally undertook an illegal action outside of the chain of command,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in comments broadcast on NTV, a private television channel. “The government elected by the people remains in charge. This government will only go when the people say so.”
Gunshots and low flying jets have been reported throughout the capital.
UPDATE: Turkey’s military has claimed the coup was successful and they’re in control of the country.
UPDATE: Turkey’s military said they took “control over Turkey to revive human rights & implement the law”
‘Nothing can stop the market now.’ Famous last words of every failed investor dating back to the volcano futures traders of Pompeii.
Predictably, markets traded flat after a horrific attack in France, which is, conveniently, being painted by the media as a ‘lone wolf’ secular attack. It was merely the act of a deranged man and had nothing to do with the religion of peace. The fact that he blurted out ‘Allah Akbar’ just before catching a bullet to the dome was merely a coincidence. I’ve heard media suggest the ‘opulence’ of Nice, his adopted city of residence, was the driving force behind his jealous-raged filled outburst.
Moving on.
For the week, airlines led the way higher, up by 8%, followed by semis, banks and copper. I can see why the airlines are in vogue, with all of the wonderful sites and sounds in the God forsaken continent of Europe.
On the downside was treasuries and gold. We saw a hard reversal in the risk off asset allocation cabal, with bonds getting shunned and suffering a stark repudiation in Germany– and down a bit here as well too. The pound and yen cooperated in kind and WTI is sitting pretty at $46.
The assumption is, naturally, Pokemon Go will spur traffic for the retailers, leading to a mammoth sized rally, one for the ages, in a sector that has been reduced to ash. The overall bullish sentiment has markets sitting in a citadel at new highs, of course and naturally, buttressed by reports that Dr. Benjamin Bernanke is counseling the Empire of Japan to throw money at their anime obsessed virgin population, in order to stoke life into their economy.
Next week the ECB meets and they might just pull a surprise on the market and ease some more. I hope it’s indelibly clear by now that every single upside catalyst for the market is driven in large part by central bank intervention. I’ve been fooled many times into believing this was a sustainable rationale from which investments could be formulated around. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What these policies have wrought is volatility and uncertainty, introducing periods of great panic and elation. The boom-bust cycles have been pervasive and continuous for the better part of the past 20 months. In my opinion, there is just one place that has rebuffed the deleterious actions of these nefarious central banks. And that my friends is The Ark.
Well, well, well, what do we have here? Oh, it seems the pro-remain Theresa May wants to delay leaving the EU, indefinitely, until Scotland is onboard.
The bastard leader of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon had this to say:
“I was very pleased that Theresa May said that she was absolutely willing to consider any options that the Scottish Government now bring forward to secure Scotland’s relationship with the European Union, and that the process that now takes shape by the UK Government will be open and flexible and that the Scottish Government will be fully involved in that.
Prime Minister May:
“I have been very clear that we have to make sure that Scotland’s interests are protected and I want to examine every option of doing that. I have already said that I won’t be triggering Article 50 until I think that we have a U.K. approach and objectives for negotiations. I think it is important that we establish that before we trigger Article 50.”
Do you know when Scotland will agree to leave the EU?
He doesn’t see prosperity breaking out anytime soon. Arthur Cashin is sounding like ‘quite the bear’ these days. I wonder why he isn’t foaming from the mouth, pounding red bulls into the fucking ground, buying shit stocks with both hands?
I’ve never been a fan of ‘Montauk’ Bill, ever since the days of JCP. However, this HLF shit has gone too far. This is a company of reprehensible qualities. Ackman just issued this press release, in regard to the FTC settlement.
“While it appears that Herbalife negotiated away the words ‘pyramid scheme’ from the settlement agreement, the FTC’s findings are clear. As part of the settlement, Herbalife can only compensate distributors for ‘Profitable Retail Sales,’ a genuine sale made at a price above the distributor’s average total cost for the product. In light of the fact that the FTC found that Herbalife distributors make little or no profit, or even lose money from retailing Herbalife products, there are no longer any meaningful incentives to become or remain an Herbalife distributor. The settlement also requires Herbalife to eliminate minimum purchase requirements and other inventory loading incentives. Furthermore, in order to maintain eligibility or advance in the plan, distributor requirements must be met through ‘Profitable Retail Sales’ or sales to ‘Preferred Customers,’ who are not buying product to participate in the business opportunity. We expect that once Herbalife’s business restructuring is fully implemented, these fundamental structural changes will cause the pyramid to collapse as top distributors and others take their downlines elsewhere or otherwise quit the business. The FTC complaint and settlement provide a roadmap for regulators in 90 other countries around the world to enforce similar requirements. We intend to work with these regulators to ensure that no future victims are harmed whether in the U.S. or otherwise.”
The stock is well off its highs, but still doing great for the day.
Has anyone gone back to Chipotle since the ecoli outbreak? I haven’t gone back, due to the specific concern that the company never quite figured out the cause or source of the outbreak. The sages at Morgan Stanley have downgraded CMG today, based off sentiments like mine. They did a survey of 2,000 customers and 13% said they wouldn’t go back in the foreseeable future.
We are a forgiving species, aren’t we?
“A full sales recovery to prior peak volumes could take years in our view, as evidenced by the fact that, according to our survey, approximately 25% of CMG customers either have stopped going or reduced frequency, even six months after the last reported food safety incident,” Morgan Stanley wrote in an analyst note.
