Baltic Dry Index. 587 +03 Brent Crude 62.59
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
We open today deep in central bankster, financialised Casino-land. Unable to get a real recovery going to save their lives, the talking chair and the rest of the furniture, can merely stimulate (bribe) an ever more disconnected, highly erratic, stock market and bond bubble.
Below, America’s top analyst takes breakfast, lunch, and dinner away, from not so ritzy, blue-box Tiffany’s. Meanwhile, America’s War Party attack on Russia has now opened up an iffy front to take the 2018 World Cup prize away from Russia. America’s DOJ, is now inadvertently at odds with the NY Fedster’s Wall Street bubble. When elephants fight, it’s best to get out of the way.
When Chasing The Tape—–Please Mind The Lemmings
by David Stockman •
Prior to today’s open MarketWatch
provided a reminder that the lemmings are still rampaging in the casino. With
respect to Tiffany’s (TIF) pre-market earnings announcement, it
telegraphed the reason why TIF soared by 12% or about $1.5 billion
during the course of the trading day:
Tiffany & Co.’s stock climbed 3.5% in premarket trade Wednesday,
after the luxury jewelry retailer reported better-than-expected fiscal
first-quarter profit and sales, and provided an upbeat earnings outlook for the year.
Well, not exactly. Worldwide
sales fell by 5% from $1.01 billion in the April
quarter last year to $962 million during the current the quarter.
Same store sales dropped even more—-by 7%.
Likewise, net income of $105
million represented a 17% plunge from last year’s $126 million.
Not surprisingly, however, this was greeted as rip-roaring good news
because the street “consensus” had marked down expected earnings
to just $91 million or by 27% from last year’s QI level.
As for the “upbeat”
earnings guidance, it amounted to this:
For the full fiscal year, Tiffany
said it expects “minimal growth” in earnings per share
from the $4.20 earned in fiscal 2014….
Apparently, flat is the new
“upbeat”, but even then TIF didn’t actually earn $4.20 in the year
ending in January. That’s the ex-items fiction that they use in the
casino. TIF actually earned $3.73 per share last year.
So at today’s close of $94.50 the
company was actually trading at 25X a net income number that
management itself attested will be dead in the water this year; and which is at
serious risk of shortfall because TIF is starting
2015 deep in the hole based on these crummy Q1 results.
Actually, upon today’s
announcement Tiffany’s LTM net income computes out to $463 million. That
happens to be the exact same number as the $464 million it posted for the LTM
period ending way back in September 2013.
In short, TIF’s earnings have
been dead in the water for several years now, but that’s not the half of it.
Tiffany is the very embodiment of a piggyback rider on the worldwide financial
bubble fuelled by the central banks.
Its earnings have already stalled
out due to the crackdown on luxuries in China, but that’s just the tip of the
diamond. The real crackdown will come when the third great financial
bubble of this century finally bursts and the top 5% ratchet back
sharply on their luxury jewellery purchases as they did in 2000-2001 and
2008-2009.
More
Is Nike the Unidentified Company in the FIFA Bribery Case?
7:49 PM BST May 27,
2015
Nike Inc. said it’s cooperating with authorities on the same day the U.S.
unsealed charges saying an unidentified sportswear company took part in bribing
a Brazilian soccer official for a sponsorship agreement.The deal described in an indictment of FIFA officials mirrors one obtained by Nike. The charges refer to a U.S. company that signed a partnership with the Brazilian federation in 1996. Nike, based in Beaverton, Oregon, announced its decade-long pact with Brazil that year.
“Nike believes in ethical and fair play in both business and sport and strongly opposes any form of manipulation or bribery,” the company said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement. “We have been cooperating, and will continue to cooperate, with the authorities.” Nike, which isn’t named in the indictment, declined to comment on the allegations.
Nike shares fell 0.6 percent to $102.84 on Wednesday in New York. The stock has gained 7 percent this year.
Winning the Brazilian sponsorship put Nike on the global soccer map. In 1994, its sales from soccer totaled $40 million. More than two decades later, it is challenging Adidas AG for the title of biggest brand in the sport, with revenue from soccer reaching $2.27 billion in fiscal year 2014.
Swiss police raided the luxury Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich at dawn Wednesday and arrested seven FIFA officials. Two former soccer executives were also charged by the U.S. in the wide-ranging corruption indictment, which includes counts of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.
In New York, Justice Department officials vowed more arrests, and to widen the investigation of FIFA officials and banks that may have been used in the alleged conspiracy.
----According to the indictment, unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, the unidentified company made a deal to pay $160 million over 10 years for the right to exclusively sell Brazilian national team apparel and footwear.
In a separate agreement, the
unidentified company allegedly paid $40 million through a Swiss bank account to
an official at a firm that buys and sells marketing rights in Brazil. Some of
those funds were used to pay off a “high-ranking” FIFA and Brazilian soccer
executive, according to the indictment.
More
With much, if not all of FIFA, likely headed for one of America’s 57 “super-max” jails, if not Guantanamo, it looks like it’s “let’s make a deal” time in FIFA. But who rats out who, and for what? “Mad-dog” McCain wants the Russian World Cup as an American trophy. It looks to me that Tiffany’s stock of trinkets and baubles, will be even less in demand going forwards.
We look forward to seeing the DOJ case against Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, and American College Football. We won’t hold our breath though. Formula One next?
FIFA’s Paris Cash Drop: $10,000 Bundles Stacked in Suitcase
7:58 PM BST May 27, 2015
The suitcase was waiting in a hotel room in Paris, the cash inside neatly
bundled into $10,000 stacks.The money, U.S. authorities allege, was payment for one of the most sought-after prizes in world soccer: a nod from FIFA, the sport’s governing body, to host the World Cup.
That allegation, involving a bid by South Africa for the 2010 Cup, is contained in a stunning 47-count indictment unsealed Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department, the result of a years-long investigation of corruption at FIFA.
While scandals are nothing new at FIFA, the portrait of corruption painted by federal prosecutors rivals the worst in sports history for length and breadth. Money laundering, racketeering, bribery, kickbacks and more were all embraced by FIFA officials as business as usual, the authorities say.
“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic and deep-rooted, both abroad and here in the United States,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement. “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials.”
One of those officials, according to the indictment, was a former history teacher from Trinidad and Tobago named Jack Warner -- the man for whom that suitcase was allegedly waiting.
A soccer official in his native country, Warner had won an election in 1990 to become president of Concacaf, the soccer confederation that oversees Central and North America.
In 2004, FIFA’s leadership gathered to consider bids from countries that wanted to host the 2010 World Cup. Among the hopefuls were Morocco, Egypt and South Africa.
Warner had ties to the South Africans, who had failed in a bid for the 2006 World Cup. One of his relatives had organized friendly matches in South Africa for teams in Warner’s confederation, according to the indictment. So Warner authorized the relative to fly to Paris to meet with a high-ranking South African bid official in a hotel, where prosecutors said the suitcase full of cash was waiting.
Years later, in 2011, Warner directed Caribbean football officials to pick up a “gift” -- an envelope containing $40,000 in cash -- ahead of the election for FIFA’s president, according to the indictment. He became angry, it said, when he learned that a Caribbean official had told a Concacaf official in New York about the cash.
“There are some people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you’re pious, open a church, friends,” he said, according to the indictment. “Our business is our business.”
More
In other news, Greece stumbles on towards the Euroland door marked “exit.”
The EUSSR now seems to be trying to push them through it.
Creditors dash Greek optimism as US warns country faces an 'abyss' of a euro exit
Hopes of a draft agreement with creditors is dismissed by European officials after warnings from the White House over a Greek "accident"
European creditors dashed hopes
that Greece was finally nearing the end-stage of its bail-out negotiations,
insisting both sides remained far apart on securing the embattled country’s
future in the eurozone.
Greek stock markets jumped after
comments from prime minister Alexis Tsipras that the country was
"close" to a deal, following reports the two sides had begun the
process of drafting an agreement.
"We have made many steps. We
are on the final stretch towards a positive deal," said Mr Tsipras.
"This agreement will be
positive for the Greek economy, this agreement will redistribute the
[financial] burdens and I believe that, very soon, we will be in a position to
present more information," said the Lefist premier.
Athens' benchmark closed nearly
4pc up on the day.
His comments came as officials
met for talks in Brussels over the country's bail-out conditions.
But European officials moved to
immediately dampen hopes that an agreement was imminent. Vice president of the
European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis said both sides were "still not
there yet".
“We are working very intensively
to ensure a staff-level agreement," he said.
More
“Fine: A bribe paid by a rich man to escape the lawful penalty of his crime”
H. L. Mencken.
At the Comex silver
depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 60.85 Moz, Eligible 117.89
Moz, Total 178.74 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, once again, the case for why everyone not a
pauper, should own some gold and silver. For brevity and to be conservative
I’ll use gold v the USA M1 Currency Component. Source FRED and US Treasury. The
ever growing subsidy is too good to pass up, and let’s not get started on using
Shadow Stats $10 trillion M3 current money supply. 1970 pre-fiat money, a mere
$618 billion.
Our
supple tribes repress their patriot throats, and ask no questions but the price
of votes.
Samuel
Johnson.
M1 Currency Component: 1,286.10 billion May, 2015.
Gold price: $1,190.00 troy ounce 27, May, 2015.
USA gold holding 258,641,074 troy ozs. May 2015. Not fully audited since 1930s.
US gold holdings approximate current value: $337-338
billion.
Currency Component per troy ounce: $4,972.53
Gold price: $1,190.00 per troy ounce.
U.S. Gold Subsidy: $3,782.53 per troy
ounce.
For Comparison.
U.S. Gold Subsidy 2001: $1,723.81 per
troy ounce.
M1 1970/01 (on
gold) 210.84 billion.
M1 1980/01 (off gold) 390.41 billion. The Great
Nixonian Error starts slowly.
M1 1990/01 (fiat money) 800.66 billion.
M1 2000/01 (fiat money) 1,126.38 billion.
M1 2015/04 (fiat money) 2,994.50 billion.
M1 2020/01 (Estimate 3,623 B. conservatively @ av.
2000 - 20015)
Only a fool wouldn’t own some gold and silver
against paper, and our lying politicians and central banksters.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress
discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Alexis
de Tocqueville
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported.
Not quite on message today, but interesting nevertheless.
Air2Nitrous device claimed to cut vehicle exhaust
By Antonio Pasolini May 26, 2015
Driving an electric car that
gives off no emissions is one of the best ways to reduce your personal
transport carbon footprint. But if an EV is out of reach, the next best thing
could be a simple retrofittable, scalable device called Air2Nitrous (A2N). Its
creators claim it can reduce engine emissions by 90 percent, while cutting fuel
consumption by 20 percent.
The Air2Nitrous team describes
its electronic emissions control system as a "first phase" device
because it works before and during combustion. It cuts emissions by increasing
the amount of oxygen molecules and decreasing the amount of nitrogen molecules
in the combustion chamber.
As air from the atmosphere passes
through the vehicle’s air filter, it then passes unobstructed through the
converter ring located in the air intake duct. At this point, the reactor
exposes the air to electrical discharges, separating nitrogen (N2) and oxygen
(O2) from the atmospheric air and transforming it into nitrous oxide (N2O),
which is an enriched fuel/air mixture.
According to the company, less
nitrogen means less nitric oxide and nitrogen oxide (NOx), and a decrease by up
to 90 percent a range of harmful gases, including CO2. More oxygen in the
combustion chamber also results in a more complete burn of particulate matter
(PM) of 2.5 micrometers or less, also known as fine particles.
Vehicle and machinery operators
trying A2N out are reporting fuel savings of six to 20 percent, Air2Nitrous
says. The system works with combustion engines powered with various fuels,
including diesel, LPG, bunker oil, gasoline, natural gas and others.
They add it takes 30 minutes to
install the A2N device, a job that can be done by any mechanic to any internal
combustion engine, with the benefits of the installation being immediate. They
also promise A2N does not negatively impact engine performance, which is an
advantage over other emissions-reducing technologies.
More
Air2Nitrous
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: +112 Down. NASDAQ: +198 Down. SP500: +150 Down.
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