Called it! Less than a week I called it. The tipping point: the UAL earnings report and comments/guidance by its CEO.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.
Boeing: oh-oh.
Down: down almost 500 points at the opening; now Down only 350 points.
GME: absolutely fascinating. Up 112% again today. Up $170, trading at $318. This is fascinating. The little guys are out to destroy a couple of (or more) hedge funds. What's happening? Hedge funds that borrowed shares of GME can't find any shares of GME to buy so they can close their positions. This little company which was apparently about to go under last week is now worth almost $22 billion in market cap. Headquarters located just up the road from where I live along a little non-descript frontage road.
Link: only link I plan to post on this page -- SeekingAlpha explaining GME.
Jobs: the Biden administration doesn't care, but CNBC will religiously and breathlessly report the numbers every Thursday. The Biden administration will extend the federal ban on leasing for a full year. Those working in those departments will receive full pay to come in, shuffle some paper, go home.
Belk department store: to file for bankruptcy. Will be blamed on Covid. Hardly.
AAPL reports today. Both AAPL and MSFT sport 40 multiples (P/E). CNBC keeps saying AAPL too pricey and yet Apple may report record revenue for any company at $100 billion, whereas everyone is excited about $40 billion for MSFT. Not complaining. Just noting. -- That was a not-ready-for-prime-time-reply to a reader who sent me a note earlier this morning.
AAPL: independent research suggests Apple doubled its telephone market share in India last year.
Disclaimer:
this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial,
job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read
here or think you may have read here.
T: headlines at six different sources with widely different views on T's numbers that were reported earlier today -- I thought the headlines for T were bad, but here we go, on a day that the market is down as much as 500 points, T is up 1%. Go, Ma. Some of the headlines:
- ATT stock slips ...
- ATT earnings. What happened?
- ATT posts earnings beat on solid subscriber additions
Nuclear energy: if you think the hedge funds are getting fleeced on GME, check out Hinckley Point C.
Down as much as 500 points. The experts say it's all because of Boeing. Okay. No argument here. But let's look at a few derivatives:
- America perceived as closed for business; previously reported; China is now the "go-to" country for investing;
- the new administration following through on campaign pledges;
- what's that old saying -- something about "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear" -- anyone closely following the "vaccination rollout" knows the global economy is in deep doo-doo; we'll post the Tuesday and Friday CDC numbers each week.
- Fed will release "minutes" today; it will be a yawner -- except for one thing -- it won't have anything positive to say about the economy going forward;
- nah, the market was down as much as 500 points at the opening and "all" blamed on Boeing; that's all they could fit on the crawler
- by the way, I haven't looked at CNBC this morning and I have no plans to until 4:00 p.m. today; whoo-hoo!
- I did watch The Picture of Dorian Gray at 5:00 a.m. this morning; what a great movie; never miss if it when it's on TCM; Angela Lansbury pops up everywhere; Sibyl Lane; another famous "Sybil" in Fawlty Towers;
Investors bailed: one large research firm noted that its firms clients sold a net $5.2 billion worth of stock last week. That was the fifth-largest weekly net equities outflow -- which measures the difference between stock purchases and stock sales -- since 2008. Sales were chiefly from institutional clients but all three groups (private clients, hedge funds, and institutional clients) were sellers. If passive investing (ETFs) was excluded it was even worse: the firm's clients sold a net $8.5 billion worth of stock last year. And the longer-term picture for investor exposure to the market is even more bleak. We hear a lot these days about the FOMO trade but yet the data is clear: many investors have already missed out on a lot of the post-crisis rally.
Meanwhile here in north Texas: another incredibly beautiful day. Just made a cup of coffee. Sophia comes over in a couple of hours for remote learning and I have a Webex meeting with my Schwab broker at 1:30 p.m. CT. Not sure what to wear. Only haircut(s) since February, 2020, were by Sophia, a six-year-old. LOL.
Television moderators: I am really, really impressed with the operation at EPSN's "First Take." I can only take Max and Stephen A for a few minutes before I have to turn them off, but this morning, I saw how really good the moderator is. Don't know her name. Will look it up later. Oh, there it is: Qerim Rose. On the fly, she is busy framing a topic for discussion, needs a fact, doesn't ask for the data, doesn't look for the data but the folks behind the scenes monitoring her every word immediately know where she is going with her question, and realize immediately the data she needs, and, literally, on the fly, tells her the number she was looking for was "55." She knew it the number of football passes she was talking about numbered "50-something" but needed the exact number and the exact number was given to her, literally in real time, literally on the fly, she didn't miss a beat and said she had just "gotten" the exact number. Color me impressed.
Oh, one last thing. What's JNJ doing? Blah. Flat. Down 0.41%.
No, here's the last thing: Norfolk Southern raises its dividend. Whoo-hoo! A pretty good jump, also. From 94 cents to 99 cents. Whoo-hoo!
How bad was it? Boeing lost a record $11.9 billion in 2020 but everyone knew it. That was not the big problem this morning. This was the second shoe to drop: Boeing said the debut of its 777X jet would be delayed again until late 2023. I remember blogging some time ago that companies need to get rid of calling things "X" and "XL."
Yup: the UAL earnings report last week was the tipping point. Called it.
GME
ReplyDeleteIn order to short a stock, it must be borrowed from someone else. If the LAW were followed, these short squeezes couldn't happen. You can't short 140% of a stock!
You are correct; the shares must be borrowed. I did not understand the 140% number either. It appears one can borrow borrowed shares. If so, this is very, very similar to what the big banks did years ago when slicing and dicing and wrapping mortgages before that imploded.
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