Is New York About To Be Hit By A Perfect Storm?

While John Travolta will always love 'Sandy', New York City (and for that matter much of the Atlantic Coast) may well want to forget the name after the weekend. Tropical Storm Sandy is destined to roll into the mid-Atlantic and New England from Friday but has some extra-special surprises possible with it. As Wunderground notes, if Sandy gets caught up with a trough approaching the Eastern US and then that combines with the fact that Monday is a full moon - meaning astronomical tides will be at their peak, increasing storm surge concerns, we could see a replay for the 1991 'Perfect Storm' that wreaked so much personal and property damage. We hear California is nice this time of year?

Hugh Hendry: "I Have No Idea Where The Stock Market Is Going To Be"... But "I Am Long Gold And Short The S&P"

Hugh Hendry: "I have resigned from the professional undertaking of coin flipping. I am not here to tell you where gold’s going to be. I have no idea. That’s my existentialism. I am a student of uncertainty, I have no idea where the stock market is going to be. So when I am creating trades in my portfolio for my clients, I am agnostic. I just want to enhance the probability that I make money come what may."

Apple Cash Balance Rises At Slowest Pace In 30 Months

For a company that recently had a $600 billion market cap, for which scale is everything, and for which every sentence begins with "if you exclude its cash, its multiple is" two things have to be consistent: it has to keep growing its cash, and said growth has to be proportional to the firm's scale. For Apple, in Q3 the first condition was satisfied... but just barely. Total cash and equivalents did rise from $117.2 billion to $121.3 billion, but the rate of sequential increase, which was only $4.1 billion, was the slowest increase in cash and equivalents since March 2010, when Apple's total cash load was a far more modest $41.7 billion, as was its market cap. While AAPL continues to be a growth juggernaut, in its pursuit to appease Wall Street with dividends and other gimmicks, is it starting to lose the big picture, which is and always has been about generating cash flow? And how long until the organic growth to cash generation is not even enough to cover the dividend outflow? What happens if and when AAPL actually has cash decline in one quarter? Finally, is it time for the infamous Braeburn Capital to show Simon Potter who truly is boss?

After Retracing All After Hour Losses, AAPL And AMZN Resume Downward Direction

After some significantly volatile after-hours action, the wunderkinds of the Nasdaq have reverted back up to their VWAPs as all is well once again and the media narrative can play out... AAPL volume is not heavy (remember we said option-skews were near-record levels - implying everyone and their mum owns downside protection and will be unloading into the open tomorrow). QQQs are suffering more than AAPL for now - implying that's where the hedges went. AMZN's move was even more impressive wrigging back up to VWAP. Who is the marginal buyer here? As we post, both are leaking back from VWAP's safe harbor...

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

SP 500 and NDX Daily Charts

Remembering Oscar Romero and the Martyrs of El Salvador

The Fiscal Cliff Not the Bus That Runs Us Over

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 3 hours ago

If MSM is talking about the fiscal cliff as the bus that will run over the economy, stock market, and US consumer, expect it to be a non-event. The message from history is clear. The that runs us over is always the one nobody sees coming. As for business investment stalling, the message from the market offers a slightly different perspective. Commercial and business loans,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 

 

Wall Street Back In Business, Largely Unreformed

Governments Are Terrible At Engendering Prosperity And Wealth

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 4 hours ago

In reference to statism, I certainly don`t want to be misunderstood. I`m no anarchist. There are many legitimate functions governments must handle, mostly involving public safety, such as those of national defense, police and fire protection, air traffic, the inspection of buildings and food, and flood control. It`s just that after a century of experiments we can now see clearly that governments are terrible at engendering prosperity and wealth. - *in Investment Biker* *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featu... more » 

 

Dow Jones/UBS Commodities Index Change to Benefit the Precious Metals

Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 6 hours ago

Every year, the various commodity indices, that are used by hedge funds and index funds to benchmark against, have a reweighting of the various commodity inputs that are used to comprise each particular index. During this reweighting process, the percentage of some commodities are increased while the percentage of others are decreased. As a result, those funds benchmarking against the index, are forced to recalibrate their particular portfolios, selling some commodity positions while buying some new commodity positions in order to come into alignment with the new weightings. Dow Jon... more » 

230 Hedge Funds Suddenly Cried Out In Terror And Were Suddenly Silenced

A week after the second most populous hedge fund hotel, Google, blew up, it is now time for good ole' Hotel Caaplefornia itself. The HF holders table below is presented without comment (as we have said all there is to say many times). Remember: orderly, cool, calm, collected single file procession through the tight exit: and nobody panic!

Apple Disappoints

And so the behemoth misses... again:

• APPLE 4Q EPS $8.67, EST. $8.75 - miss
• APPLE 4Q SALES $36.0B - slight beat
• APPLE SOLD 14.0 MILLION IPADS DURING QTR, UNIT EST. 15.3M

But the uglyness is in the forecast. And this time it is not a low-ball:

• APPLE SEES 1Q EEPS $11.75, , EST. $15.49
• APPLE SEES 1Q REV. ABOUT $52B, EST. $55.07B

Stock halted so keep an eye on the QQQ as a proxy - QQQs imply AAPL $590 here (200DMA is $587)... AAPL will resume trading at 4:50ET 

Amazon Bloodbath After Hours As Suddenly "Earnings Matter" Once Again

After defying gravity for months on end, on what we quarter after quarter warned were ever declining margins and revenue growth, the Amazon bubble (just about 300x P/E at last check) has finally popped, and investors no longer believe that the company can offset collapsing profit margins with increasing volume. And yes, the Kindle is proving to be nothing more than yet another fad rather than the latest and greatest razor-razorblade ecosystem paradigm.

The QEternity 6 Week Scorecard: C Minus

UPDATE: A Plethora of ugly single-stock moves today from NYT to P, and recent IPOs from RLGY to WDAY
UPDATE: AMZN -10.25% after-hours!
Equities ended the day modestly green - with S&P futures pushing to VWAP to close the day-session right at Draghi's Dike. Once again we saw early strength fade in US stocks followed by a low volume push up to VWAP which then menadered into the close. This leaves US equities rather notably weak after QEternity and VWAP-fading weakness suggesting the over-crowded net-longs that we recently noted looking for the exits in a STFR style. Among the major asset classes, only Treasuries are green since 9/13 with the USD also up over 1% (helped by this week's 0.5% gain). Nasdaq and Russell are worst followed by the rest of the broad equity indices clustered around -3.25% but Oil's 13% drop is the most significant (even accounting for the historical precedents). Gold and Silver are topping stocks for the year but gold and stocks have hugged one another up and down since Ben hinted at infinity.

Iconic NY Steakhouse "Gallagher's", Which Survived The Great Depression, Is Closing

The Department of Labor's WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) website may have been exempt from layoff notices related to the fiscal cliff, but it still provides a sufficiently (bleak) complete picture about the real nature of layoffs and business cycle in general in America's busiest city. Which is why it was precisely using the WARN website that we learned that one of New York's most historic steakhouses, "NY's Prime Steakhouse since 1927" Gallagher's, located on 52nd street, and which survive the great depression, is shutting down on January 16. Surely neither the surging price of meat, nor the ability of patrons to spend charge $46.95 for an 18 ounce sirloin, has had any impact on the decision to close this iconic restuarant which survived the Great Depression, but failed to survive Tim Geithner's "recovery".

Apple Investor Anxiety At Its Highest In 18 Months

Just over a month ago - before AAPL started to fall apart - we noted the extreme levels of complacency priced into AAPL options. Heading into tonight's earnings, it seems investors are as extremely concerned as they were complacent just a few weeks ago. AAPL option prices are implying investors expect significant downside possibilities - the most concerned they have been in 18 months. Whether this is ammunition for a squeeze higher or is just the over-crowded long hedgies covering into earnings on hope - looking to reduce into strength - we will see in a few hours (but for now - the constant fading of VWAP reversions suggests the latter).

What Do Spain And Greece Have To Look Forward To? SocGen Answers: "Not A Lot"

The increasingly short-termist attitudes of both policy-makers, analysts, and investors leaves market and economic indicators in the US and Europe all anticipating some magic in 2013. If only we can get through the elections, the fiscal cliff, a banking union, a Spanish bailout request, Greek extensions; not to mention another round of weak earnings and a sliding Chinese demand backdrop. As SocGen's FX and Rates desk notes, the battle against disinflation in Europe is not over and nominal GDP outlooks remain far too optimistic - only highlighted by the morning's weak lending data.  The moribund growth backdrop also begs the question what palpable difference any relief over Spain or Greece (if it comes) will do to the long end. The answer is probably not a whole lot.
The deleveraging has a long-way to go!

The Fiscal Cliff and Demographic Drag

We know two things about the future: 1) Borrowing 35% of Federal expenditures every year is unsustainable; and 2) The Baby Boom generation of 75+ million may be working longer, but they are also retiring en masse, joining the ranks of Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries at the rate of 10,000 per day, a flood that will not ebb until the late 2020s. This raises the obvious question: if Federal spending must decline, then where is the money going to come from to fund 75 million retirees? Calling the Central Bank of Mars: Greetings, Martian friends.

Visualizing China's Chain Reaction

As the saying goes, when China sneezes, the rest of the world catches the cold. So far, if one were to look at the macro-economic surprise indices for US, Europe, and China, it would appear that China's weakness was largely ignored by US and Europe which have notably 'outperformed' relative to expectations in the last two months. However, what is apparent is that this is a lead-lag relationship which the FT provides an excellent flow chart of how China's dominant ebbs and flows chain-react around the world's supply (and demand) chains. Furthermore, the successive peaks in economic cycles since 2009 have been lower and lower as even relatively minor shifts in China's domestic production, stockpiling, or spending can have big impacts on the other side of the world. As the IMF notes: "China can transmit real shocks widely, whether these originate domestically or elsewhere."

Before The Election Was Over, Wall Street Won

Before the campaign contributors lavished billions of dollars on their favorite candidate; and long after they toast their winner or drink to forget their loser, Wall Street was already primed to continue its reign over the economy. For, after three debates (well, four), when it comes to banking, finance, and the ongoing subsidization of Wall Street, both presidential candidates and their parties’ attitudes toward the banking sector is similar  – i.e. it must be preserved – as is – at all costs, rhetoric to the contrary, aside. Obama hasn’t brought ‘sweeping reform’ upon the Establishment Banks, nor does Romney need to exude deregulatory babble, because nothing structurally substantive has been done to harness the biggest banks of the financial sector, enabled, as they are, by entities from the SEC to the Fed to the Treasury Department to the White House.

I'm about done...
Thank You

I'm PayPal Verified