iBankCoin
I've been doing this a long time.
Joined Oct 7, 2015
102 Blog Posts

Gasoline Glut has hit our shores

Way, way back in April 2016 I posted about the looming gasoline glut due to overproduction in China.. If you click the link at bottom you will open an interactive chart on the EIA website, but here is a visual as well. What you see here is imported gasoline from China and elsewhere, seeking a place to be stored. Go out and buy that F-250. You know you want to. Link to interactive chart is below.

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Interactive chart is here ——>  EIA Weekly Gasoline Inventory 1990-2016

 

 

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Android is imploding, and there’s nothing that can be done to stop it | ZDNet

This blog post is sent from the pristine walled garden of my 12.9 inch iPad Pro™ running iOS9.3.2, and routed magically thru the air, to your Interwebz via an Apple AirPort Express™ (Firmware v7.6.7)  bridged wirelessly to my Apple AirPort Extreme™ (Firmware v7.6.7) router and firewall. It is High Summer here on the Connecticut Gold Coast, and I am enjoying some Schubert with my morning coffee, pumped over Apple AirPlay™ on the AirPortExpress™ at the same time.

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This is another shameless plug for AAPL. Disclaimer: yes I own it, I do not give a flying little green crap whether you buy it or sell it, nor do I care about the price that you do.

I can actually write with some authority on the subject of computing as I have spent over forty years in Information Technology and have worked on every platform from the IBM, DEC and Unisys mainframes and minis to early Wang and Xerox workstations to Sun Microsystems SPARCstations to pretty much every network protocol, operating system and minicomputer platform ever devised. I know this shit.

My preferred devices for personal use, based on my own extensive experience, are the Apple Mac running OSX, the Apple iPhone and iPad running iOS, and Apple networking devices. For security, stability and ease of setup and configuration, the Apple Ecosystem is untouched. It works.

Android of course will not disappear, but Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet sums it up nicely by comparing the situation to the OEM’s in the PC business and the limbo they have found themselves in ever since Apple introduced the iPhone and iPad. This is hardware he speaks of, people. Not the operating system itself. Google will continue to make $$$ from Android, but it is tough to be compared to the revenue generated by Apple’s iOS.

Windows 10 (and it’s enterprise variant) is pretty good, in fact it is by far the best Windows OS ever. But it is still Windows and until Microsoft can give us an alternative to the kludge that is based on the same kernel as the original Windows NT (and it’s hardware abstract layer) my opinion will not waver. I write this as I am currently troubleshooting why Flash keeps crashing on my wife’s brand new HP Windows 10 computer. Some things never change.

Steve Jobs and Tim Cook did not give two fucks about your Adobe Flash.
Steve Jobs and Tim Cook did not give two fucks about your Adobe Flash.

This is exactly why the Gloom and Doom written about Apple is sheer nonsense and why Apple will continue to hoover-up over 80% of smartphone and tablet profit. There may be further downside in the next quarter due to anticipated weakness in the next iPhone release. Yet this is still a company that generates obscene amounts of cash, has a cash horde larger than many countries and easily the best management team and corporate ethos around. I am of the opinion that the Price/Earnings ratio is not the best way to determine value, but Apple ceased to be a growth stock long before last quarters watershed event. I would say that the events most important to your definition of the company as a value stock rather than a growth stock are the initiation of the dividend and the listing on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Exodus quickly points out the obvious when you compare the P/E to it’s peers, industry and the market as a whole:

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I think most people understand that Apple’s recent collaborations with enterprise vendors are going to be very interesting developments over the next few years. And keep a sharp eye on Apple as it dominates the Patient-Doctor-Hospital human interface via wearable devices such as the Apple Watch and Apple’s secure ecosystem. That R&D money is not simply being thrown at the phones and if that is the way you are currently viewing this cash cow then you are insane and financial advisers should be put in charge of your family trust.

There are more (Android) OEMs scrambling over one another for attention than there are customers to go around. And no wonder. While Android might have 80 percent of device sales, it only pulls in some 20 percent of the revenue.

Apple’s figures here are reversed, which gives the company considerable resources for advertising and R&D into new products. (emphasis mine)

And what about the Android malware toxic hellstew. Another day, another few million Android devices infected with malware. These are not problems that face iOS users, and it’s no surprise that Android users are defecting over to Apple.

 

Source: Android is imploding, and there’s nothing that can be done to stop it | ZDNet

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Elizabeth Warren is detrimental to the Clinton Campaign

Last week I wrote about Warren and her attack on fine American tech companies. Since then it has become clear that embracing Warren, as Clinton is doing, could backfire in a spectacular way, as the loose-cannon Senator has not not only completely embraced the absurd “Black Lives Matter” crowd of annoying loud people, she has labeled Black Lives Matter as “the leaders of the modern civil-rights movement”.

The group that physically assaulted and verbally abused students in the Dartmouth Library who were committing the crime of studying for their exams. The same group that commandeered Senator Bernie Sanders’ podium. The group that recently took over a rally for the victims of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting and used it for their own purpose. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

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Elizabeth Warren is a fraud

I suppose I could start with the fraudulent Cherokee story, but I believe someone has beaten me to that one. Calling her “Pocahontas” does Great Disservice to the real Pocahontas, an exemplary historical figure of untouchable moral fortitude.

No, this is the story of an Opportunistic Politician. A very smart one.

The alleged Darling of the Left bolted from Senator Bernie Sanders when the old socialist needed her support the most. Sanders is finished as the media whores have beaten him like a gong for daring to challenge the Presumptive Nominee. Warren ran straight into the arms of Hillary Clinton, who Warren was viciously attacking for years. Here is the Bane of Wall Street, now cozying up to the recipient of enormous campaign cash from Wall Street’s biggest financial institutions.

They really do think we are fucking morons. They just might be correct. The Obama Administration, and by extension the DNC, has been waging war against this country’s brightest and most innovative companies in the courts.

“Today in America, competition is dying,” says Scary Liz. If she is talking about Apple, Amazon, Google and other leaders in the Tech Space, then she is a fucking moron, a political hack, or most likely  both. These companies are at the forefront of technical innovation. And they are at each other’s throats. What is the definition of competition in Elizabeth Warren’s mind? And if these well-run, and in many ways, Socially Conscious (cough, cough) companies did not have enough competition among themselves, there is always Samsung and a host of other Korean and Chinese companies just licking their chops in the wings, waiting for the Asshole Americans to neuter their best and brightest so that they can fill the void.

Fuck Elizabeth Warren. Here is this morning’s DowJones blurb on the latest bullshit from this person:

MW Elizabeth Warren says competition is ‘dying’ as she voices fears over Amazon, Apple

Jun 30, 2016 14:11:00 (ET)

By Brent Kendall  – 415-439-6400; [email protected]

Obama administration appointees have blocked several big mergers in recent years. But some observers, particularly on the left, believe the government still has not done enough to truly reinvigorate antitrust enforcement.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) gave a prominent voice to those views Wednesday, saying corporate concentration in many sectors of the economy was harming innovation, small businesses and the middle class.

“Today in America, competition is dying,” the senator said at an event hosted by the New America think tank.

Warren credited the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which share antitrust authority, with being more active than they were during the George W. Bush years. But she said the agencies need to do more to “hold the line” on anticompetitive mergers, especially given the large wave of mergers and acquisitions undertaken in recent years.

“Mergers are outrunning enforcement,” she said. The DOJ and FTC have adequate enforcement power at their disposal, but “too often they just don’t use that authority,” the senator said.

Since winning a Senate seat in 2012, Warren has emerged as a forceful leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Held in high regard by many supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her backing has been avidly sought by presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whom she’s joined on the campaign trail in recent days.

Fascinating comment from the mainstream media here. Sanders supporters are fuming over Warren abandoning Sanders.

On Wednesday, Warren said antitrust agencies have approved too many problematic mergers by companies that promise asset sales or other concessions to preserve competition. Too often, she said, such “fashionable” steps do not fully ensure competition and sometimes they don’t work at all, creating higher prices and reduced services for the public.

Warren took particular aim at the health insurance and drugstore markets, where big mergers are pending. She also cited the airline industry, which became more concentrated in 2013 after the Justice Department agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit, allowing the merger of US Airways and American Airlines when the two agreed to shed some assets at congested airports.

Warren voiced potential concern about three major tech companies — Alphabet Inc.’s Google (GOOGL) , Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) — because they control essential tech platforms that other, smaller companies depend upon for survival.

An expanded version of this story is available at WSJ.com (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/06/29/elizabeth-warren-says-competition-dying-more-merger-scrutiny-needed/)

-Brent Kendall; 415-439-6400; [email protected]

And finally, here is a 22 minute video of The Politics of Fear via a Bill Moyers interview from 2004. Warren is the Voice of Doom. At the 19-minute mark, things get juicy.

She tells Bill a story about Hillary Clinton, whose views on the bill suddenly changed after she became a New York senator. “As Senator Clinton the pressures are very different… the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, not pharmaceuticals, it was consumer credit products. [Clinton] had taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.”

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Tom Lee: Stocks to soar 11% in 2016

With the S&P 500 closing Thursday at about 2,099, record high levels are less than 2 percent away. But the oft-bullish Lee won’t be content there — he thinks the index will climb all the way to 2,325, which would represent an 11 percent gain from current level.
After pointing out a few more potentially bullish factors, such as fiscal stimulus after the Brexit vote, the potential for U.S. exports to strengthen and energy’s rebound thanks to an oil bounce, Lee concluded by turning again to the potential for a great deal of money to enter or re-enter the market.

Certainly more QE would temporarily stimulate markets, but it would just set them up for an even bigger fall. The guy never even mentions negative interest rates nor the strong possibility that the EU aka Angela Merkel will punish the UK for it’s upstart behavior.

Also not mentioned are the already absurdly high valuations we currently see in the markets, though it was left to the show’s producer who actually mentions it in the story, rather than the moron who should be asking the question. Brian Sullivan continues on his Quest to be a bigger asshat than Jim Cramer. Sullivan is the Master of the quick quip yet never challenges his guests opinions, ever.

The video link is below. Take your blood-pressure medication before viewing and I apologize for CNBC’s habit of placing 45-second ads ahead of their videos.

Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors joins Brian Sullivan to discuss the market’s next move:

Source: Tom Lee’s bullish case for stocks

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Microsoft Officially Scheduled to Alter Its Windows 10 ‘Forced’ Upgrade System

I run an IT business. This is very sad for me as a revenue stream will dry up. Mister Softie’s campaign to force an upgrade on any user regardless of consequences was outrageous.

DISCLAIMER: Long MS since 1992 but fuck them.

 

Cheezburger.com – Crafted from the finest Internets.

Source: Microsoft Officially Scheduled to Alter Its Windows 10 ‘Forced’ Upgrade System

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Yes. I bought something today.

DISCLOSURE: I added to my PJT Partners holding today, in the midst of an absolute rout of the banking sector. I see you laughing, pigdogs, but Maven will prevail. Buy when others are fearful, bishes.

I have already lamented in an earlier post regarding the Privileged Son of a Privileged Son who fucked me and anyone else remotely associated with this firm. May he rot for the next two decades in the same cell with Bernie Madoff.

But that is old news, isn’t it? Move on – seek opportunity in any Financial Meltdown. Call it bottom-feeding, baby-with-the-bathwater investing. Emotion simply cannot be part of this equation. That is not easy when one is currently underwater, even if only by a few hundred bucks.

So I need a Plan, a reason to buy more of this crap. What do they do…what is their milieu. How do they generate cash flow. Can they whether a storm? Better yet, can they thrive in it? In this case I believe they can. The answer is the current dire straits of West Texas Intermediate crude oil and it’s unfortunate producers of the fracking variety of Black Gold, Texas Tea. Pummeled beyond belief, the carnage in this space has only just begun.

Case-in-point – I’ll grab just one fiasco: Energy XXI Ltd. (NASDAQ: EXXI). One of many distressed players in the crude oil field, PJT is handling their financial plan, such as it is:

"We can't hold on much longer, Captain!"
“We can’t hold on much longer, Captain!”

 

Shareholders are holding the bag here and have only recently won a seat at the Liquidation Table, while bondholders will be getting pennies on the dollar. But one must assume the bankers and lawyers are divvying up some nice fees

The shareholders of troubled oil and gas company Energy XXI Ltd. (EXXIQ) have won a seat at the table. A bankruptcy judge last week agreed to appoint an official committee to represent equity, the costs of which will be added to Energy XXI’s restructuring tab. Facing the risk that they’ll be wiped out in the restructuring, the shareholders have raised questions about the true state of Energy XXI’s financial affairs. The shareholders will now have the cash needed to hire advisers to investigate. ([email protected]; @lilliannnn)

Houston’s Energy XXI, an oil and natural gas development and production company that relies heavily on acquisitions, issued a warning to investors in early March. “Absent a material improvement in oil and gas prices, or a refinancing, or some restructuring of our debt obligations or other improvement in liquidity, we may seek bankruptcy protection to continue our efforts to restructure our business and capital structure and may have to liquidate our assets and may receive less than the value at which those assets are carried on our consolidated financial statements,” the company says in an SEC filing. PJT Partners LP serves as Energy XXI’s financial adviser. Source.

20150327_022204000_iOSMORE DISCLOSURE: Yes, as stated above, I own this stock. I want the price to go up as it is currently $324 below my cost. I do not care whether you buy it, sell it or will it to your Siamese cat. It is my opinion only, and damn you to hell if you try to blame me for your own trading results. I am also riding on the Upper Deck of Captain Fly’s Ark, sipping margaritas with two nubile Asian girls. I did not realize Asian girls were a separate species – but it is not my Ark – and I never question the Rules.

 

The future belongs to those floating above the flood.

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South Korea may seek bilateral FTA with UK after Brexit: trade minister

 

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SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea may seek a separate free trade deal with Britain in coming years in an effort to minimize the impact of Brexit on the country’s trade with the European Union and Britain, the trade ministry said on Sunday.
It added the more lucrative Korea-EU trade agreement, worth six times the value in exports, will be maintained for the next two years as it will take at least that long for Britain to exit the EU.
“We plan to consult with the EU to reflect appropriate changes on the free trade agreement we have with the bloc after reviewing the possible impact of Brexit,” the ministry’s statement noted.
Following Britain’s decision to leave the 28-country bloc last week, the trade ministry said it expects Brexit would have a limited impact on the country’s real economy.
As of 2015, South Korean exports to Britain amounted to about $7.4 billion, accounting for 1.4 percent of the Asia’s fourth largest economy’s total exports, according to the trade ministry data.
Korean exports to the EU amounted to $48.1 billion, accounting for 9.1 percent of the total exports.

Markets adjust.

Source: South Korea may seek bilateral FTA with UK after Brexit: trade ministr

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