This Morning’s Winners and Losers

TIVO is not up 86%. The merger with RIVO was completed and the new entity is trading under TIVO.

Thus far, the action is light, but acrimonious. Biotech and oil are trending higher, while everything else drifts lower after the ECB disappointed by not extending QE. You people are fuckhead, motherfuckers.

Don’t worry lads, she left the engine of her plane running the whole time for a quick escape, obfuscate things a little, if you will.

Here is Hillary discussing her idea to get the leader of ISIS. How fucking novel. You mean, instead of arming them and creating a vacuum for them to thrive in and sell oil to Turkey, we should get the leader of this group and bring him to justice?

Holy shit, why didn’t Obama think of this?

Hillary Clinton: “We should make it a top priority to hunt down the leader of ISIS” https://t.co/6OZtrfIwim https://t.co/t9y7tqr4BC

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 8, 2016

Things just got hard for traders in Europe, after ECB head, Mario Draghi, declined to prolong his degenerate streak of bond buying idiocy, which is scheduled to expire in March of 2017.

LATEST: ECB has lowered inflation and GDP growth estimates slightly, Mario Draghi says https://t.co/MsiBd9VbOX pic.twitter.com/eUSqcNNkKV

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) September 8, 2016

He said inflation targets were on track and that the discussion of extending the bond buying program hadn’t been broached. These words are having a deleterious effect on European markets and German bunds, as well as providing a sharp lift in the euro.

Yes, that’s a 5bps move in bunds.

This is all trial balloon shit, people. The ECB is merely trying to gauge market reaction by removing the heroin needle from the arms of traders. Should markets get dicey, these fuckers will go right back to rigging markets, rest assured.

My views on rigged markets is somewhat sanguine. Although I despise it and equate it to cheating and believe it sends out the wrong signal to people, it hasn’t been proven it could fail yet. In other words, markets will continue to get rigged as long as the riggers are free to get away with it and moral hazard doesn’t bear down on economies.

CNBC is also reporting that there aren’t any bids on the table for Simple Jack’s company. As a thriving growth company with endless prospects, Simple Jack will discuss cost cuts at today’s board meeting. Naturally, you can’t just spend money forever without there ever being consequences.

Maybe he’ll fire himself today and let a real CEO take over, so that he could focus his efforts on destroying Square?

Shares of TWTR are off nearly 4% in the pre market, amidst of shroud of uncertainty and rumor mongering.

I’d post some H. Clinton clips if I could get over the moribund, predictable, robotic nature of her responses. She’s well scripted and hardly a human being. Trump, on the other hand, is a wild fucking howitzer, firing shots into the crowd. Highly entertaining.

Trump on receiving a compliment from Putin

Trump’s counter-terrorism plans

Trump on why we should’ve taken the oil

During tonight’s maddening money episode, Jimbo delved into the ongoing saga at Chipotle and paid homage to billionaire/failed hedge fund manager, Bill ‘Montauk’ Ackman. He cited other companies who’ve endured shit being found in their food, even killing kids along the way, only to come racing back stronger than ever. Jim believes investors are about to partake in a great sea change in Chipotle’s fortunes. Jim believes the troubled times at CMG, enduring cataclysmic 25-30% drops in sales, are almost behind them.

As such, he believes Ackman is correct and the shares are a buy at $400.

According to Exodus, both revenues and earnings paint a very grim visual for persons looking to invest in a healthy company.

Valuation wise, the company is priced for the sewers, at 2.7x sales, matching the likes of DPZ, YUM, ZOES and QSR. In other words, CMG isn’t cheap, but instead trades in line with its peers. That is not opinion, but fact. The one notable difference between, say ZOES and CMG, is the former is growing revenues at 25-30% per annum, while CMG is mired in shit (literally)–down by 25%.

The best performing restaurant stocks in the space, over the past 3 months, have been WING, DPZ, EAT, BDL and JACK. Overall, the industry has done nothing, down by 0.59% over the past 3 months.

Participate in my Twitter poll.

Do you have an issue with eating at Chipotle?

Do you have an issue with eating at Chipotle?

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) September 7, 2016

About 61% of stocks were higher today, led by airlines and apparel stocks. Basically, anything that has lagged was beaten higher today. For those of you who’ve opted out of the market, for the better part of the past 6 months, you missed out again. Enjoyment and the pleasantness of man are spreading around Wall. Men clad with falcon masks, running about with cocaine in their veins, are setting the narrative.

All of the superfluous news, speaking towards a narrative dark with foreboding tales of doom, have proven to be drivel–little worthless pieces of paper written by men employed in a very low station in society.

It might bemuse you to know that “The Fly” is enjoying the scenery, watching apes go to and fro, getting all worked up about things beyond their control. My investments have morphed from super-accelerant turbo speed flame throwing to a more genteel and distinguished version of complacency. My current positions reside in treasuries, gold and short FCX, mainly because it’s a piece of shit worthy of lower prices.

I’ve seen markets like this one dozens of times throughout my professional career running money for others. It ALWAYS ends the same, in a river of tears, strewn with the broken bones of men who delved into the abyss just one last time, for that last great trade, which turned out to be cantankerous.

In the meantime, enjoy the splendour and the democracy and the wanton chicanery, as it works in your favor.

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%