Professor Grinberg on EU-$AAPL Ruling: ‘There’s a Fundamental Problem with Rule of Law in the Retroactivity’

The bureaucrats in the EU ruled that Ireland cut an improper tax deal with Apple, back in 1991. As a result, they’re punishing Apple for it and retroactively fining them $14.5b dollars. This is an unprecedented rule that not only affects Apple, but the entire oligarchy of US multi-nationals. This, of course, is unacceptable.

Professor Grinberg weighs in and clarifies the topic for those of you sucking on watermelons at home.

The cure for all of this chicanery is repatriation. Lower the tax rate from 40% to 10% and permit US oligarchs to bring back $2.1 trillion in cash held overseas, so that they could partake in share buybacks and other types of horseshit.

More on this topic from CNBC.

The absurd media organization called CNBC today asked the question today, is Icahn boxed in to HLF? I didn’t bother to read it, because, well, the premise is inane.

Then Icahn responded by talking mad shit about Ackman.

“If anyone should feel boxed in, it’s Ackman,” Icahn said in an exclusive interview with CNBC.com.

“Ackman is an astute student of the market, as I am, and I think he would probably agree that there is very rarely, if ever, a company with the short interest, as it was just announced of 27.2 million shares of the 92 million shares outstanding. Of the 92 million, there are 20 percent to 25 percent that are closely held.”

“The only time you see the ratio very close to that is in companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy,” he added.

“Obviously, Herbalife is not anywhere near that position, and is in fact growing dramatically in countries such as China.”

“I don’t believe any professional short-sellers would ever take a position in a company with these numbers,” Icahn said. “As the old saying goes, fools will go where angels fear to tread.”

So my question to you is this: who’s boxed in, the guy with a net worth of $20 billion and permanent capital, up big in HLF, or the guy beguiled by high profile, humiliating losses, racked with terror from the specter of an Icahn led short squeeze?

I started a position in GLD and a few miners last week, all of which are getting C-4d today amidst the market sell off. Deflation is the rage, as the dollar grinds higher and commodities lower.

My losses are being offset by my 20% weighting in my FCX short, which is circling the drain.

Bear in mind, my position in gold isn’t a trade, but more of a longer term thesis trade headed into the fall.

Should TLT start to trade down, which would be entirely nonsensical given the risk off environment, only then would I be exposed to loss.

With 25% in cash, I am looking forward to allocating money into the SPY, but only after a sharp decline.

Without question, we are at the doorstep of a sharp decline, similar to what H. Clinton faces in the polls.

For all of the excitement on the teevee and Twitter, markets will close out August flat. On the upside were terrific gains in the semis, led higher by SEMI (+77%), MU (+20%) and MCHP (+11%).

Banks did well too, bouncing off the lows. Some of the best gains were found overseas, many of which traded up double digits.

Biotechs and many low quality names rallied too, creating an interesting market ruled by advantageous stock pickers. Indexers were left in the dust.

Oil and gas stocks did well, led by gains in high profile names like CHK and CLR.

Utilities traded off, as well as numerous telecoms and other ‘safe haven’ stocks.

Gold traded down, abhorrently.

The Chinese Twitter, WB, traded up 46%. ANGI, YY, YELP and SALE all traded up 20-35%. BABA traded up 17%, highlighting a terrific month for degenerate Chinese burrito stocks listed in the US. Even FIT did well, higher by 12%.

The old guard names, like CRM, AMZN, ORCL, FB, GOOGL and AAPL did absolutely nothing. Zilch.

The fact that mega cap tech and others did poorly most likely means the hedge fund industry underperformed, once again. While it’s true, the bigger names did nothing and the overall indexes traded flat, there are dozens of huge winners found in lowly mid to smaller capped names, and China. Typically, and I don’t mean to be foreboding all the time, this stage of a bull market represents the last leg before the fall. While this isn’t always the case, if recent history is of any use to us at all, the month of September is going to be far less rewarding for people playing with dynamite sticks inside gunpowder factories.

Gentlemen don’t chase degeneracy. They bemuse themselves by watching it from afar.

The hobo generation of grifters and Bernie bros are never gonna spend money like previous generations. They’ve been mutated by the water, the media and their phones. But, the delusional pollyannas over at BAC are pleasantly optimistic, despite all of the evidence pointing to the opposite direction.

“There are 2 billion Millennials worldwide and they have overtaken Boomers to become the largest living generation in U.S. history,” the team writes. “But we need to prepare for the rise of the 2.4 billion Centennials — born at the turn of the century and set to live to over 100 years. They are embracing diversity, sustainability, globalization, disruptive technology, peak stuff,’ new business models, and entrepreneurialism like no generation before them — and they are economically optimistic to boot.”

Not only is the team betting on them living longer, they are also predicting their incomes will nearly triple in the next 15 years, going from $21 trillion in 2015 to $62 trillion by 2030. Based on this, here are the five key themes they believe are in play:

Here is how BAC wants you to play this terrific tailwind of sloppy Joe eating renters.

Consumerism: American Eagle Outfitters Inc.(AEO), Expedia Inc.(EXPE), Target Corp.(TGT), Starbucks Corp.(SBUX), Fitbit Inc. (FIT) and Under Armour Inc.(UA)

Homes: The Home Depot Inc. (HD), Lowe’s Companies Inc. (LOW), Masco Corp.(MAS), and Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL)

Education: Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. (BFAM), Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE), Alphabet Inc.(GOOGL), HP Inc.(HP), and Microsoft Corp.(MSFT)

Finance: First Data Corp. (FDC) and On Deck Capital Inc. (ONDK)

Seriously, how fucking lame is this report? Notice how the genius doesn’t bother to mention NKE or a real restaurant, other than hipster SBUX. Talk about stereotyping a generation. Although the millennials are in fact hobo vagabond hipsters right now, they will not be once they start earning real money. This BAC analyst is a fucking moron of the first magnitude. If I actually cared enough, I’d find his name and write it on this blog, calling him such.

It’s like a crazy man is on the teevee, spewing insane shit and thinking everyone is just as crazy as he is. Is he so fucking delusional that he believes these Syrian refugees are all peace loving men and women, wholly interested in raising families and just integrating into our western ideal? Of course not. This is part of the plan.

Bill says “there are 10,000 structurally sound buildings in Detroit, which are vacated” that can be filled with Syrian refugees. He says Syria is truly the ones missing out on all of this winship and how we will take these ‘hard working’ people and make lemonade.

The fuck?

It’s all there in black and white.

Speaking of which, the black unemployment rate in Detroit is upwards of 15%.

It’s actually a lot worse than simply retail dying in a particular setting, such as a mall. Retail is getting killed, because of bitches like Heather Bresch and the entire healthcare industry raping and ravaging the upper middle class. Retail is getting killed because of student loans, predatory lenders and rents that are out of control. Kids are re-urbanizing the cities, which is expensive. Said fuckheads living in these cities do not have any money to buy things, after rent, food and transport.

Just a few years ago, people were taking trains and busses. Now those same fuckheads are in Ubers, which is more expensive.

The price of food has risen, as people become keenly aware of GMOs and the shit companies put in the food supply. Pushing against that, folks are opting for organic food and fresher ingredients. That shit is expensive. You get my drift.

There is a cultural shift away from clothing oneself in the best possible garments, or even decent stuff, to dressing like a fucking hobo. Because of all of these things, retailers are feeling the pressure on their top and bottom lines.

Both DSW and ANF are the latest examples of people not giving a shit about the clothing industry.

Listen to me: it’s over and never coming back. Amazon is the matrix. In 50 years hence, all of the malls will be vacated and vegetation will fill what was once a prosperous setting. The landscape of America will be one of a dystopian scene, with vacated streets, crumbling infrastructure, and people robbing one another for food and healthcare vouchers. The trend is, inexorably, horrific–if you actually take the time to extrapolate out.

Sure, you may think all is well now. After all, you’re doing fine. Your brokerage accounts are at record levels. But the current trajectory of healthcare, education and general living expenditures are on an unsustainable path–heading straight for destruction.

Other than that, everything is great.

The dollar is 0.4% higher v the euro, which is pressuring oil–currently off by 1%. The slow, but certain, demise of the shopping mall is abundantly clear today, with ANF knifing lower. Apple is getting raped by the tax man in Europe, much to Tim Cook’s chagrin. And a general malaise is sweeping across Wall Street ahead of Friday’s jobs report.

Do not expect any traction in either direction before those numbers are released.

Having said that, it’s import to note that copper is trading $2.07, now down for the year. I am short FCX and believe it buckles under $10, before the summer is over.

Bonds continue to hold value, even with people running scared over Federal Reserve rate hikes. The reason being, there is an underlying fear permeating the minds of asset managers. I’ve been managing money my entire life, ever since birth. While some of you pretend to manage money online, I actually did it for 18 years. There is an uneasy feeling just underneath the surface, a general disgust with the way things are progressing. Populism is sweeping the country and the elite are worried about the status quo. There are many things that need to be resolved before the market can truly break out. I suspect we won’t have clarity until after the elections.

We must do a better job at restricting free speech. Have you seen, or heard, some of these Trump XENOPHOBES? My heavens, we must remove them from the internets and possibly intern them for reeducation purposes. Our civil society, one who is readily busy bombing the fucking shit out of minorities into the fucking ground, and who keeps minority neighborhoods wards of the state, wholly dysfunction and unsafe and without investment from our non-racist business leaders, cannot and will not tolerate hate speech.

As such, the historically kind and just and loving nation of Germany, single handedly responsible for over 100 million deaths over the past century, wants Facebook to take a more onerous and hardline approach to hate speech. You know, get rid of accounts of people who protest immigration or people detonating themselves in cafes, in the name of their God.

“Facebook has an immensely important economic position and just like every other large enterprise it has a immensely important social responsibility,” Thomas de Maiziere said.

“Facebook should take down racist content or calls for violence from its pages on its own initiative even if it hasn’t yet received a complaint.”

Last year Heiko Maas, the country’s justice minister, told Reuters that Facebook must abide by stricter German laws banning racist sentiment even if it might be allowed in the United States under freedom of speech.

De Maiziere said he recognized Facebook’s efforts to develop software that can better identify outlawed content and praised its efforts to fight child pornography. He said it was right to warn users in its terms against the dissemination of illegal content.

“But it’s up to the company to ensure those terms are upheld,” he said. “A company with a good reputation for innovation will have to earn a good reputation in this area.”

Eva-Maria Kirschsieper, Facebook’s head of public policy in Germany, told reporters during de Maiziere’s visit that the discussions between political leaders and companies in social media would continue.

“We see ourselves as part of German society and part of the German economy,” she said. “And we know that we have a major responsibility and we want to live up to this responsibility. We take this issue very seriously indeed.”

Just know, iBC will never have you sent to gaol for comments left on this site, or any of our domains. They will, however, might piss me the fuck off and force me to visit you, as you drown yourselves in glasses of chardonnay, to punch your fucking mustaches off.

A powerful gale is coming from the east (extra Dickens) and it will blow out your piker portfolios straight out of the waters. The markets have traded sideways for more than a month now, unable to break out of its tight range–frustrating ardent longs and the canaille pretending to be important, who are instead from the Third Estate.

Morgan Stanley is out with a note suggesting to ignore the Federal Reserve, them and their petulant ham and eggers, faking hawkishness. Instead of selling bonds, like a moron, and getting long stocks, Morgan suggest that you board the ark and reserve seating next to the giraffe and the leopards.

“We found little at Jackson Hole to sway our view on the U.S. Treasury market,” Morgan Stanley strategists Matthew Hornbach and Guneet Dhingra wrote in a client note. “While August payrolls present an obvious risk, we continue to believe market-implied probabilities for a September rate hike will end at zero, not 100.”

There are several preferred ways to play this. I will highlight some of my favorite ideas.

For a straight forward allocation into long duration treasuries, without leverage, buy TLT. It pays a monthly divvy, annualized at around 2.5%, and is at the epicenter of all large money managers daily buying programs.

If you’re not interested in the income aspect of treasuries and only want the price action, go with the zeroes, ticker ZROZ.

3x long datedTreasuries: TMF

2x long dated Treasuries: UBT

US Treasury strips: EDV

7-10 yr Treasuries: UST