Fox: Assange to Be Arrested ‘Within the Next Few Hours’

Well, it was certainly good and entertaining while it lasted. But we can’t carry on reading the emails of John Podesta for the rest of our lives, can we? Poor John. All he wanted to do was subvert the third estate and get his bitch into power.

If Ecuador ceded to John Kerry and the Obama administration, then I’m never gonna eat ceviche in the Galápagos Islands. I promise you here and now, I’ll never do it.

This from the morons at Fox.

#Fox reported #assange to be arrested today! #Wikileaks #podestaemails11 #Trump #MAGA #Veritas #PodestaEmails10 pic.twitter.com/fz9hlzAgky

— B. Sue for Trump (@SuePickles80) October 18, 2016

If true, we all knew it’d happen sooner or later. The only problem for World government is that by arresting Assange you make him a martyr and 10,000 others replace him, like terrorists — but for freedom and transparency instead of retrograde sentimentalities.

Nevertheless, Assange did good and is a true hero, a symbol of unvarnished truth in a sea of morbid lies and filth.

Wikileaks just sent out two tweets that should shock me into thinking ‘wow, my government is fucked up for trying to leverage peace negotiations protect Hillary Clinton and her band of bandits from public humiliation’, but I’m not. I’m too much of a cynic to believe anyone does things for selfless, righteous reasons.

Seeing that Ecuador turned off Assange’s internet access, I imagine J. Kerry might want to take a bow and flatulate himself for this huge diplomatic victory.

Unlike western Federal Governments of the world, both investors and corporations are awash in cash. Isn’t that an interesting dichotomy? Have you ever thought about it for a moment, seeing that we’re bedraggled by $20t in debt at a time when cash is freely flowing and hoarded by corporations on a global basis?

Bank of America is out with a note highlighting the fact that investor cash is now at levels not seen since after 9/11, at 5.8%. Smugly, they view this as a buying signal — since people are too stupid to identify risk, apparently. I’ve always loved the thought process behind ‘contrarian signals.’

In other words, you’re basing your entire investment philosophy on the stupidity of the masses. It is condescension, personified.

“This month’s cash levels indicate that investors are bearish, with fears of an EU breakup, a bond crash and Republicans winning the White House jangling nerves,” said Michael Hartnett, the bank’s chief investment strategist.

He furthers…

Elevated cash balances potentially sets the stage for a stock-market rally, according to the Bank of America analysts. “When average cash balance rises above 4.5 percent a contrarian buy signal is generated for equities. When the cash balance falls below 3.5 percent a contrarian sell signal is generated,” writes Hartnett’s team in Tuesday’s report.

On a short term basis, Harnett might be right. After all, November of 2001 was a short term bottom for the market — as it drifted into year end and then rallied hard in early 2002. However, let’s not forget the fact that markets continued to struggle for more than a year afterwards, with the Nasdaq plunging from 2,000 to the 1,200 level before bottoming.

I think people sense something is wrong, evident by the sheer numbers and lunacy of central bank overplanning. Perhaps if they’d stop meddling and let the business cycle live or die on its own merits, people would feel more confident in the legitimacy of the market.

I know I would.

As CB Insights pointed out last week (“Union Square Ventures Is Really F’n Good”), USV was also an early investor in Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), Tumblr (which was sold to Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO)), Lending Club (NYSE:LC), Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), and Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY). USV has had a billion dollar exit every year since 2011. Last year, Union Square Ventures led one ranking as the top venture capital fund in the world, and the Twilio exit further cements its status.

Look at their balance sheet statement for the first 9mos compared to last year. Does this look like a healthy business, making up the majority of its gains in interest income schemes? If it weren’t for their money changing abilities to turn gold out of shit, one might surmise this was a shitty business.

The stock is higher in the pre market, but I’m not impressed.

For the quarter, they bought back 7.8m shares at $162 for more than $1.2b. They have 34m shares left in their buyback program, while steadily cutting back on their employee headcount.

For the past 3 months, all of their growth has been in lending.

If you’re buying Goldman here, you’re betting on a company that is using buybacks to boost earnings and wholly dependent on non investment bank growth to fuel their business. They just unveiled their new lending business, dubbed Marcus, so I suppose they’ve seen the future and it has more to do with lending than it does with their core business of investment banking.

It’s too muddled with lots of gray areas. I’d avoid.

The market loves corruption and stagnation. Asian markets ripped higher last night, led by Hang Seng up 1.5%.

This morning it’s all about the MIB — higher by 1.8%.

And of course there are rumblings that the U.K. might need the House of Corrupt Commons vote on BREXIT.

This from bbg

“There’s a very strong argument for the government allowing the approval of a deal reached, but of course it would prefer a vote after Article 50 is triggered,” said Robert Thomas, professor of public law at the University of Manchester. Against the backdrop of a ticking clock, lawmakers would be “pressured to agree” to any deal, he said.

So it’s all very well and good. WTI and gold are edging higher and futures are up 100.