Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- Cleaning Out The In-Box -- December 16, 2019

First things first: ascending tricolons. How Boris Johnson cracked the code. Great, great article by Sumantra Maitra over at The Federalist.  How to speak like Churchill:



Word of the day: chiasmus.

From a reader:

Boris says "chiasmus"

Trump says "Pocahontas"

Two wildly coiffed leaders

Stirring up a big fuss

Phony money, says a reader. I don't understand it enough to comment. I will study it, maybe comment on it later. Regardless, traders don't seem to care. Over at zerohedge. But seeing that it's on zerohedge suggests a bit of hyperbole.

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Save Our Ship

Boeing with an SOS; weighs suspending the 737 MAX. WSJ. 

Europe with an SOS: EU needs NASA's help getting Mars mission off the ground. 

McDermott with an SOS: receives a delisting warming.

OPEC with an SOS: price spike will be short-lived.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, career, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

SOS, ABBA

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Recession Fears! Fears, Yes. Recession, Probably Not.

Recession is just around the corner:

• BofA says market is primed for a "melt-up" in 1Q20. 
• UNP: up $3.09, up 1.75%, trading at $180.12; set a 52-week high earlier this morning at $180.82, which might be an all-time high;
• AAPL: up an incredible $4.55; up 1.67%; trading near $280/share

Most ridiculous business story in the past week: Robert Pozen, MarketWatch, says this "tax break" is the tax break that "America's 1%" will cling to.  It's the "step-up" tax break for heirs to an estate. This "tax break" benefits everyone, not just the 1%. What a doofus. The good news: the biggest benefactors: the US senators and congress-people. They will never change the law.

Amazon threat: Amazon sees surge in shipments. Threatens FedEx, UPS. If the latter two are threatened, USPS is really threatened. We went to post office over weekend to mail packages. Dead. Nothing going on. First e-mail kills the US post office; now Amazon killing the others. So why would Amazon threaten FedEx, UPS, USPS? Won't folks use all four shippers? Nope. Amazon undercutting shipping costs so much FedEx will be left with priority flats sent by business. UPS? Same thing. In addition, their old, clunky, huge "brown trucks" must be hard on fuel; look antiquated compared to new, snazzy, snappy Amazon vans.

Bernie's world: Venezuela's refugee crisis will surpass that of Syria; said to be "largest in history." Probably hyperbole. There have been some huge diasporas in the past. Venezuela should be the richest country (per capita) in the world. The refugee crisis that will exceed Venezuela's? Mexico, when it implodes. The southern surge will be measured in Betos. Link: https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/12/13/study-venezuelas-refugee-crisis-to-surpass-syria-largest-in-modern-history/?fbclid=IwAR1L644MAy4A-ZPdeeLJUxwBz0sXvbCqCxbi1w6DJulK78v9TEFhr5DRXIw.

Apple: Tim Cook's dinner with the president paid off. Chinese tariffs could have cost Apple $150/iPhone this holiday season.