Early News For Tuesday, July 29, 2014; Early Morning Trading -- AAPL Could Hit $100 Today; ATT Spikes

For Investors Only
Early Morning Trading

It looks like this is the day AAPL could hit $100 ($700 - pre-split). But the big news is the 6% spike in ATT. And just yesterday Wall Street Cheat Sheet wrote: 

Here's why no one is buying ATT's sponsored data plan. The companies AT&T was hoping to entice into signing up have yet to do so. In fact, the program has failed to attract any of the big-name companies the telecom giant had hoped. There have been a handful of smaller companies that have hopped on board, but the public at large remains unconvinced that the idea has much merit.

It turns out ATT is up because Windstream got a favorable IRS ruling allowing to spin off some of its assets as a REIT. ATT is likely to follow. I used to own a lot of WIN. I don't know if I still have it or not.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

Another Essay On Price Of Oil Going Forward

Rigzone has a nice essay on the downward pressure the shale revolution is having on the price of oil. Two words are missing from the essay: Saudi Arabia. One data point is missing: China's growing affluent population.  Rigzone takes issue with:

"The world of energy may have changed forever," according to Professor James Hamilton of the University of California.

"Hundred dollar oil is here to stay." Hamilton, who is one of the most respected economists writing about oil, made his bold prediction in a paper on "The Changing Face of World Oil Markets", published on July 20.

John Kemp, a columnist for Rigzone, argues that the price of oil could fall significantly due to the "glut" caused by the shale revolution.

So, pay your money, take your chances: everyone is in agreement. The price of oil might go up; it might go down.  

The Wall Street Journal

News and Comment (Mostly Comment)

Ukraine setbacks afflict Putin.

Electricity sales look anemic for the seventh year in a row, despite Americans' love of gadgets and an improving unemployment rate. Americans do love gadgets; that is true. I'm not so sure how "true" the reports are that the unemployment rate is improving all that much.

Medicare's trust fund has rebounded strongly; Social Security's disability fund is on the brink of exhaustion. This will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Washington Bureau Chief looks at increasingly fraught US-Israel relations and finds mutual distrust stemming from a broken peace process and ongoing talks over the fate of Iran's nuclear program.

Taxpayers will share $17 billion of their income to fix the VA. Most of that will probably go for a federal website for veterans to book their own appointments.

Israel is escalating its Gaza campaign, telling its citizens to prepare for a prolonged operation, defying international demands for an immediate cease-fire. Did Hamas miscalculate this time when they started this round of fighting? Hamas overlooked the fact that the US president and his SecState have lost all credibility and the world is pre-occupied with at least two, maybe three, other shooting wars, and the shoot-down of a commercial airliner. Another week of Gaza operations and the mainstream media will have grown tired of this and moved on to the next crisis.

Wow, Darden Restaurants chief to depart in shake-up. Clarence Otis will depart, no doubt to spend more time with his family.

The Los Angeles Times

So sue me!

When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, its requirement that large employers provide health coverage or pay a penalty seemed to many supporters a key pillar of the effort to guarantee health coverage to Americans.

Four years later and after repeated delays, the so-called employer mandate has become something of an orphan, reviled by the law's opponents and increasingly seen as unnecessary by many of its backers.

Twice in the last two years, the Obama administration has put off the penalties, citing difficulties enforcing the mandate.

House Republicans plan to sue the president, largely over his suspension of the mandate, saying he has broken the law by failing to enforce a requirement that they bitterly oppose.

What a mess. In the big scheme of things, ObamaCare pretty much ended up doing two things: a) taxing medical devices (I guess; I'm not even sure about that anymore); and, b) teaching engineers how to write software code for websites. Websites that didn't work. The GOP is wrong on this one; this will simply hurt union workers and they will blame the GOP. Leave it alone. Move on. We have ObamaCareLite and it seems to be working just fine -- hung up in court.