Newark Airport Ordered To Halt Flights After Drone Sightings

The Federal Aviation Agency ordered Newark Liberty International Airport to halt flights temporarily after a drone sighting, according to Bloomberg

The civilian drone was spotted just north of the New Jersey hub flying at an altitude of 3,500 feet according to FAA spokesman Greg Martin on Tuesday. 

The grounding comes one week after the Trump administration announced a long-awaited set of proposals allowing drones to fly at night and over populated areas without a waiver, while also tightening security for industries seeking to expand into robotic aerial deliveries. 

Under the proposed rule change, the FAA would require drone operators to have “an anti-collision light illuminated and visible for at least 3 statute miles.” Those weighing under 0.55 pounds could fly over populated areas without additional restrictions. Manufacturers of drones weighing more than that would have to prove to the FAA that if their product “crashed into a person, the resulting injury would be below a certain severity threshold.” 

In recent weeks, London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports had drone incidents which resulted in major travel disruptions. Last week, 38-year-old George Rusu was charged with flying a drone near Heathrow on Christmas Eve – just days after a scare at Gatwick grounded over 1,000 flights. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2AWTvHq Tyler Durden

The Radical End

Via The Zman blog,

Usually, when you seek to take over something, you try not destroy it in the process of acquiring it. For example, if you’re trying to rise up the ranks of an organization, you don’t want to discredit the organization in the process. What’s the point of rising up the ranks, if the post you finally attain has been made worthless? This “conservative” instinct becomes stronger once you have gained control of whatever it was you were after. Now it is yours and you do what you must to protect and increase its value.

For example, when the Left took over the institutions of the American ruling elite, they were careful to not destroy them in the process. They destroyed the people in their way, for sure, but they were careful to avoid damaging the institutions too much. In fact, they worked to increase the power of the government, the schools and the colleges once they gained power over them. Today, logic says the Left should be extremely conservative, not wanting to alter anything, for fear of diminishing the power of what they have.

That’s the curious thing about what we are seeing from the Left. They have a firm grip on all of the institutions of the empire. They control the mass media. They control the administrative state and the education system. Global corporations are now run by people deeply invested in virtue signaling. The days of the Left having to pressure big business to do their bidding are long over. Big business is the vanguard of the Left now. Despite this, the Left is running around trying to scramble all of the rules.

When you’re in charge, the rules are your friend. After all, you get to write the rules, pick the people who enforce the rules and pick the people who interpret the rules. That is one of the best perks of being in control of the institutions. The people in charge of the empire should be the great defenders of law and order, as the rules work in their favor. Instead, everywhere you look, the Left is trying to destroy the authority and legitimacy of the things they control. It’s as if they are trying to burn down their own house to spite us.

A good example is the two big fake news stories this past week.

The first one was an obvious put up job by some hack political operators. There was no way it could hold up under scrutiny. Left-wing media should have attacked it in order to maintain what little credibility they have on these issues. Similarly, they fell for the story about the teenagers and the Indian protester. Official media should have been all over debunking that story, as that would have made them look responsible and humane.

Instead, they helped egg on the feeding frenzy. Even if the facts were as originally presented, normal people will always take the side of a kid over an adult in a situation like this. It’s not as if the kids were a gang of blacks attacking an old man in the subway. They just stood their ground and peacefully protested on behalf of their issue. More people were red pilled by that story than by all the alt-right internet memes combined. The media frenzy was suicidal, self-destructive and avoidable.

Now, it could simply be the case where their fanatics on social media make it impossible to put the brakes on these feeding frenzies. A left-wing idiot posts fake news on Twitter and within hours it is retweeted a million times by other left-wing idiots. The speed of the process makes it impossible for the more sober minded media operations to react in a timely fashion. Before they can react, the fake news has rocketed around the internet and the debunking of it is well under way.

That’s not the case in other areas where you see the Left damaging their own cause. For example, they are undermining the law in an effort to swat at flies. Two years after Charlottesville, left-wing lesbian lawyer Roberta Kaplan is asking the court to manipulate Federal law so she can harass alt-right activists. Her scheme relies on reinterpreting old laws aimed at the KKK to terrorize people who attended the rally. Kaplan is a billionaire and she is suing people who don’t have two nickels to rub together.

This is not strictly an American issue. In Canada, two left-wing professors are suing a student, because the student shared a Jordan Peterson video. This video was so upsetting and triggering to the professors, they went on a crazy rant about Peterson on social media. They now fear he may sue them, so they are suing the student in an effort to shift the blame onto her. That sounds insane, but given the state of the courts in Canada, it is not out of the question that the student loses the case.

The only possible outcome of this sort of lawfare is to convince people that the law is a fraud. The only way a legal system can function is if the people think the law is both rational and predictable. Even if people don’t like the laws, they will obey them as long as the law is predictable. If left-wing lawyers manage to subvert the law by getting left-wing judges to sign off on what amounts to state terrorism, the law becomes the enemy of the people. The value of controlling the law and the courts declines.

Even if you want to put this sort of stuff aside as the actions of rogue individuals and mindless idiots on-line, think about some of the policies the Left is championing. One big item on their list is the normalization of open borders by debasing the value of things like driver’s licenses. States with left-wing government are in a rush to issue driver’s licences to illegals. This will result in so much fraud that the picture ID will lose its value. All levels of government count on those ID’s being mostly accurate.

It’s not just for the benefit of foreigners. New York State is now offering a third option for biological sex. A big part of how the state keeps tabs on the citizenry is having their personal information, usually through the driver’s license process. How long before the body dysmorphics start demanding they can describe themselves as they feel they should be described, rather than their actual description? Cops will be looking for people claiming to be dinosaurs, having licenses with pictures of a T-Rex on them.

When you start to tabulate the radical agenda and the ad hoc activity of the Left, the most obvious conclusion is there is little coordination. The people at the top have lost control of the monster they created. They dream of creating a coalition of non-whiles, over which they will preside, so they can control the empire. The trouble is their coalition is always reminding the other side that such an arrangement will be a catastrophe. Again, the Left is mostly just radicalizing white people now.

The other conclusion is the radicalism of the Left has no limiting principle, so it has to spiral out of control. Like the Khmer Rouge, the logical end of this new radicalism is an orgy of self-destructive violence. That means it will not burn out on its own as happened in the 1970’s with student radicalism. This round of radicalism is for keeps and the Left will not stop until they are stopped. That’s going to put an end to civic nationalism and any thoughts of restoration. Whatever comes next comes after the final conflict.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2R2qKOZ Tyler Durden

FBI Agents Complain That Shutdown Is Hampering Sex Trafficking, Gang Investigations

Is the government shutdown also Vladimir Putin’s fault? Following a report released Tuesday by the FBI, we imagine it’s only a matter of time before Rachel Maddow and the rest of the left-leaning cable news commentariat come to that conclusion.

In a 72-page-report and press conference, the FBI on Tuesday attacked President Trump for allowing the shutdown (now in its 32nd day) to continue and listed all the ways that break in funding for the DOJ (where the FBI is housed) has impacted its ongoing investigations (though it’s worth noting that, according to media reports, the Mueller probe has continued without much of an interruption). Among the functions that have been interrupted: The US attorneys office can’t issue grand jury subpoenas, ongoing investigations have been interrupted, agents are struggling to work without pay, and efforts to thwart sex trafficking and anti-gang operations (including investigations into MS-13) have been delayed.

The FBI shared a summary of these gripes in a twitter thread published by the FBI Agents Association. Though agents are still working cases, some agents are struggling to feed their families. All of this culminated with Agents Association President Tom O’Connor calling on lawmakers to pass legislation funding the FBI.

Some of the anecdotes included in the report offered more details about how the shutdown has affected investigations.

“I have been working a long-term MS-13 investigation for over three years,” one FBI employee wrote in the report. “We have indicted 23 MS-13 gang members for racketeering, murder in aid of racketeering, extortion, money laundering and weapons offenses. … Since the shutdown, I have not had a Spanish speaker in the division. We have several Spanish speaking informants. We are only able to communicate using a three-way call with a linguist in another division.”

Several agents claimed that, because the FBI currently cannot pay confidential informants, efforts to curb narcotics trafficking have fallen by the wayside because the bureau is “unable to do undercover” or confidential human source operations that require purchases of guns or drugs from dealers on the street.

In other words, Trump is using the shutdown to exact his revenge on the FBI…and he doesn’t care whether it hampers investigations into gangs and drug traffickers.

Read the full report here.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2R4RZIE Tyler Durden

How To Pay For All That ‘Free’ Stuff? Tax Porn!

Authored by Kurt Nimmo,

An Arizona Republican thinks she can get Trump’s wall built by imposing a tax on folks who look at porn on the web. 

AZCentral reports:

Republican state Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, wants to charge you $20 to look at pornography on the internet.

House Bill 2444 would require companies that make or sell electronic devices in Arizona to install software that blocks porn.

To remove the block, all you’d have to do is prove you are 18 and plunk down $20, payable to the Arizona Commerce Authority.

The money would go into a newly created account called the John McCain Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Fund, with the proceeds to be used for one of 10 things.  

Don’t be fooled by the title. The legislation is merely another revenue generation scam by the state. It has nothing to do with human trafficking or child exploitation. 

But wait a minute. Maybe AOC (socialist darling Alexandria Occasion-Cortez) should propose a similar idea to pay for her list of free goodies, including the budget-busting idea everybody should be on Medicare and college should be free (an idea that will certainly rile up the loan sharks feeding off student loans). 

Despite her inability to grasp simple economic concepts – seemingly a common problem among the Millennial Generation – AOC might embrace the concept of heavily taxing folks for what they view in the privacy of their own homes. In fact, it can fit comfortably within the context of the Me Too movement. All aspects of “toxic masculinity” are to be eradicated. 

By why stop at porn?

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, blazed a path with his sugary drink tax. Last year, he put together a task force to look at expanding revenue generation by taxing all manner of unhealthy “lifestyle choices,” including the use of tobacco and alcohol. 

AOC is apparently oblivious to the fact no number of new taxes, including her proposed 70 percent tax rate on millionaires, will satiate the desire for “free things” which are, of course, not free. Billionaires, however, are smart—they invariably come up with ways to avoid the long reach of the tax man, thus leaving the monetary burden to you and me, the little people. 

Maybe I’m not giving this lady a fair shake. It’s possible she realizes no amount of taxation – short of total confiscation of all wealth by the state – will pay for the list of free things she promises habitually gullible citizens. 

It’s possible she understands the only way to pay for free things is to borrow the money and play a few ledger book tricks at the Federal Reserve.

Far too many Americans are oblivious to a massive debt picking up steam like a runaway train descending a 45 degree trajectory. AOC’s supporters – mostly of the clueless socialist stripe – are milling about on the tracks. They are deaf, blind, and dumb to the impending disaster. 

After the smashup, they’ll be out for blood.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2B0zVdo Tyler Durden

The First ‘iPhone Bailout’ Is Now A Reality

The only companies who have been hurt more by the astounding flop of Apple’s latest crop of smartphones have been Apple’s suppliers. And following a beat-down in the shares of companies that produce displays, casing and internal components for the phones as Apple has now twice scaled back production guidance in a two month period, perhaps it was inevitable that some of these companies would need to seek some form of financial relief, due to their heavily reliance on the relationship with Apple.

And while so far the headlines relating to Apple’s suppliers have focused mostly on layoffs and retrenchment at the companies’ factories, for the first time on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Japan Display, which manufactures the liquid-crystal displays used in the iPhone XR, is in advanced talks to secure outside funding from Taiwan’s TPK Holdings and the Chinese state-owned Silk Road Fund for a stake as large as 30% (which could give the companies control of a firm that was once deemed a strategic national asset by Tokyo).

SN

And just like that, the first iPhone bailout is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Japan Display Inc. is in advanced talks with Taiwan’s TPK Holdings Co. and Chinese state-owned Silk Road Fund about an investment that would include a stake of about 30% with the possibility of greater control later, people familiar with the matter said. The size of the investment isn’t decided but could reach around ¥60 billion (around $550 million) or more, the people said.

That Japan Display is the first supplier to struggle in the wake of Apple’s guidance cut is hardly surprising: The company relied on Apple for roughly half of its revenue during the fiscal year ending in March 2018.

Also, aside from the liquid crystal display used in the iPhone XR, many of the other display products once manufactured by Japan Display have become commoditized – meaning that phone manufacturers can buy similar products more cheaply from producers in China and South Korea. And what’s worse for JD, Apple is expected to drop those displays altogether in its batch of phones set to debut in 2020, which are expected to feature an “organic” light-emitting diode display.

Though it’s days of being a cutting edge producer of display technology are far behind it, WSJ says Japan Display might still have some value for an Asian producer looking to leverage its ability to mass-produce low-density polysilicon sheets. The deal reported by WSJ hasn’t been finalized, but it’s looking increasingly likely that TPK and the Silk Road fund will purchase a slug of convertible JD bonds which they can then convert into stock.

TPK of Taiwan makes the touch-panel portion of displays for many smartphones including the iPhone. The Chinese investors are interested in building display factories in China using Japan Display’s technology, people familiar with the plans said. A TPK spokeswoman declined to comment, and Silk Road Fund didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Under the deal being discussed, the investor group wouldn’t initially take a majority stake and some of its money would go to purchase Japan Display bonds convertible into stock, paving the way for fuller control in the future, said people involved in the deal. INCJ, the Japanese government-backed fund, would hold on to its shares for now but might sell its stake in coming years, they said. INCJ currently owns 25% of Japan Display.

Japan Display plans to use the invested money for day-to-day operations and hopes to announce a deal as soon as mid-February, when it reports quarterly earnings, said people familiar with the deal. The investor group is likely to take up the majority of the company’s board, they said.

Final terms haven’t been set, and the deal could still fall apart. Other Chinese companies including display maker BOE Technology Group Co. and touch-panel maker O-Film Tech Co. at one point considered investing in Japan Display but dropped the idea, said people involved in the talks. Representatives of BOE Technology and O-Film Tech didn’t respond to requests for comment.

With Japan Display on the chopping block, we wonder if Apple’s other suppliers will come to their senses and start lobbying the iPhone maker to at least consider cutting prices as sales stall and the relative strength in the US dollar makes its phones increasingly unaffordable abroad.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2RHRfys Tyler Durden

Nastya Rybka Freed From Russian Jail After Vowing Not to Reveal More Dirt on Deripaska

After being arrested at the Moscow airport and held for a week without a bail hearing, Nastya Rybka was released by Russian authorities on Tuesday. Her lawyer, Dmitry Zatsarinsk, posted a video of the two of them to Instagram, adding that Rybka was free and more information would be revealed at a press conference Wednesday.

Rybka was being held on suspicion of luring people into prostitution—something that the U.S. has started legally defining as “sex trafficking.” Last week, Rybka pled not guilty to the charge against her, which could come with a six-year prison sentence.

Some worry that should she be convicted, it could lead to a lot worse.

Rybka catapulted to international attention last year for her cameo in the saga surrounding President Donald Trump and Russia. While detained in a Thai prison, the Belarusian model, author, and sex coach claimed to have insider information on a supposed Trump-Russia connection. She also crossed Oleg Deripaska, a controversial Russian oligarch and former business associate of Paul Manafort.

Rybka and her associates were first arrested in Pattaya, Thailand, last February while running one of the “seduction” seminars they’d held there for years, as well as in cities around Russia and other former Soviet Bloc countries. Until this trip, the group had no major run-ins with Thai law enforcement. But acting on an alleged tip, local police raided the workshop and arrested the group for working without a proper visa. Seven of them, including Rybka (legal name Anastasia Vashukevich) and her mentor/lover/boss Alex Leslie (born Alexander Kirillov), would wind up being prosecuted on prostitution charges and imprisoned in Thailand for nearly a year.

Just a few weeks prior to that arrest, Russian journalist Aleksei Navalny publicized photos and videos that Rybka had previously posted to social media. Rybka’s posts—part of a convoluted plot to seduce an oligarch, document it, and then use the evidence to sell her books and Leslie’s pickup schools—revealed that then Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Prikhodko had been hanging out on Deripaska’s yacht. In one bit of audio, Prikhodko seems to at least mention U.S. politics.

Prior to Navalny’s report, Rybka had released two books about her time with “the oligarch” and written about it extensively on social media, while keeping under wraps the real identities of those involved in these supposedly true tales. Not long after the Navalny report, Rybka wound up imprisoned in Thailand and pleading with the U.S. government for help.

Rybka and Leslie claimed to have information pertinent to potential Russian meddling in U.S. politics. (They did not state whether the information implicated Donald Trump or anyone in particular.) They said they would turn over the dirt if Americans would help them avoid deportation to Russia, where they feared they would face harm. But U.S. authorities were publicly dismissive of their claims, and American media quickly lost interest.

Meanwhile, Deripaska sued for invasion of privacy. Last summer a court ruled in his favor, ordering the still-imprisoned Rybka and Leslie to pay Deripaska 500,000 rubles (about $8,000) apiece.

After pleading guilty to the Thai solicitation charges, Rybka and Leslie were deported from the country on January 17. Upon arriving at the Moscow airport, Russian authorities arrested both of them.

It’s unclear why Rybka was sent to Russia and not her native Belarus. “A spokesperson for the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow said it was looking into the information about the detention,” Radio Free Europe reported last week.

Zatsarinsky said that Rybka had planned to catch a connecting flight to Minsk from Moscow but was detained before she could board. On Instagram, he posted a video of the arrest and announced that he was defending Rybka, whom he said was being illegally detained.

According to the state-owned Sputnik news, the case against Rybka involves seven people total and was initiated by Anastasia Davydova, aka Sasha Travka, a former business associate of theirs. On January 19, a court ruled that authorities could keep them in custody for three days while gathering evidence in advance of their bail hearing.

In a video from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America project Current Time, Rybka said she wanted to personally apologize to Deripaska and Pridhodko. She suggested that people who wanted to do Deripaska harm had taken advantage of her and weaponized her for their own ends, when she had just been trying to attract his attention for personal reasons. She also promised that there would be no more recordings released of her time with Deripaska, and no forthcoming books about the experience.

from Hit & Run http://bit.ly/2FIcycE
via IFTTT

How To Gain A Real Edge In Investing

Via AdventuresInCapitalism.com,

The View From ICR

Over the years, I’ve spent less time talking to CEOs and more time learning about industries. Let’s face it CEOs lie (compulsively). They only tell you the good news – or what they think you want to hear. If I have a strategy question, maybe I’ll let them humor me for 20 minutes about their 5-year plan. However, if I want to really learn something, I speak with the CFO. I have found them to be drier, most to the point and not as attuned to the nuances of shareholder interaction. They also tend to be closer to whatever discreet financial questions I may have.

This doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on company visits or the quarterly ordeal of earnings calls. I listen to hundreds of calls. I don’t want to just know what my positions are doing; I want to know what ALL of the competitors, customers and suppliers are doing. However, nothing beats the sort of knowledge you can gain at a large industry conference like ICR – which I just returned from.

I could save myself the travel time and listen to the presentations at home (with Reg FD, they’re almost all streamed live), however I go to conferences primarily for the group breakout sessions, usually attended by a handful of die-hard hedge fund PMs and analysts. This is where the gloves come off and people stop being friendly.

You get to hear shorts try and embarrass CEOs, you hear guys threaten lawsuits and activism and you hear the guy next to you chime in with a quick footnote, “That asshole said the same thing last year and then did the opposite.”

For 30 minutes, the wolf-pack attacks with rapid-fire questions and the CEOs are on the defensive. Along the way, I get to see what a half dozen knowledgeable investors are worried about and what I may have missed in my own due diligence. You can watch the CEOs squirm and guess if they’re lying or not. More importantly, you see which questions really frustrate them and which ones cause no concern. It’s two days of mayhem and a few dozen meetings. It may take me weeks to prepare for the meetings; yet, well-run conferences are always worth it.

Given how compact the meeting schedule is, you start to hear recurring themes;

-Low skilled labor cost is increasing much faster than the government’s statistics

-Transport cost is still high but moderating a bit

-Online models are difficult to implement and will have negative returns on capital for many years into the future

-Big investments will continue in IT anyway

-Omni-channel is the way to go

-Economy remains strong but there was a noticeable dip in December

At the same time, you notice which themes are missing this year;

-No talk of health care inflation

-Minimal talk of regulatory risk

However, the biggest theme I heard was related to on-shoring and abandoning China’s supply chain.

Despite what politicians may want you to believe, this has actually been an ongoing trend for the last few years. As China gets wealthier, labor costs are increasing, leading unskilled production to cheaper countries or back to America where production can be automated. At the same time, due to supply chain complexity and the needs of just-in-time product, lead times and supply chains are shortening forcing production closer to America. However, Trump’s trade war has put this trend into hyper-speed.

No one wants to risk paying tariffs and no one wants to be in a situation where a critical component can be banned and force an entire product’s re-design. The risks are just too high and Trump’s next moves are seen as too unpredictable. While no one is happy about impairing fixed infrastructure or dealing with the chaos of rapidly re-making a whole supply chain, Trump has taken a multi-year process and accelerated it into a few quarters. Dozens of companies spoke of going from 50-70% “at-risk to China,” to no China exposure in 6 months. That’s stunning rate of change. Once it is in motion, it won’t be reversed—no matter what agreement Trump can reach with Xi. I’m not smart enough to figure out all the second order effects of this change—however, I know who loses badly. There’s a reason that China’s manufacturing economy is collapsing. Look at the statistics – even the Chinese, who take an Elon Musk approach to statistical reporting, cannot fake a collapse in their export industries.

Why does this matter?

I don’t see the Chinese government allowing their economy to simply unravel. In the longer run, the economy will have to shift towards a more services-oriented economy – however, this take time. Short term, the Chinese will go with Plan A, the only plan they seem to know – bridges to nowhere funded by risky loans to dubious SOEs, facilitated by lax government oversight and money printing. How do you play this? You own the stuff that goes into this infrastructure; commodities. You want coking coal, iron ore, copper and all the other components of heavy infrastructure. You want natural gas as LNG which will be the preferred fuel-source for this growth. The switch from coal to natural gas electrification certainly qualifies as a giant make-work program—with the added benefit that cleaner air means fewer citizen protests. Finally, you want to own the supply chain—the pipelines, rail and boats that will transport all this stuff.

The producers and suppliers of these assets have been sold off relentlessly over the past few months on the view that China’s economy is about to collapse – I think the sellers are wrong and the valuations are silly. I have been aggressively adding more exposure over the past two months.

In summary, there’s only so much you can learn by reading 10-K’s. To be successful as an investor, you need to get out, meet people, learn something new and question assumptions relentlessly. Investment conferences are great. My resolution for 2019 is to attend more conferences.

*  *  *

Disclosure: Funds that I manage are long various natural gas, coking coal producers and shipping companies

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2U9UafQ Tyler Durden

IBM Jumps On Guidance Boost Despite Revenue Slide, Massive Addbacks, Bizarre Tax Rate

IBM is back to its revenue declining, non-GAAP-EPS-beating-through-low-tax-gimmick ways.

With Wall Street expecting IBM to report (non-GAAP) EPS of $4.82 in Q4, the company “beat” by the tiniest of margins, reporting non-GAAP, adjusted EPS of $4.87, a 5% drop from last year.

So far so good, but as usual, there was a gaping difference between GAAP and non-GAAP, and in this case it was more than double, with the company reporting a paltry $2.15 in GAAP EPS, more than 50% below the Non-GAAP number. Unfortunately for IBM, unlike last quarter when non-GAAP pre-tax and net income both posted modest increases even as their GAAP equivalents dropped, this quarter, both non-GAAP and GAAP pre-tax net Income declined Y/Y by -1% while non-GAAP Net Income dropped by 8% (GAAP Net Income was not meaningful).

How did IBM bridge the traditionally lower GAAP EPS number to the higher non-GAAP? Simple: here is the full breakdown.

More importantly, the EPS only beat because the company reverted back to its tax gimmick ways, as IBM’s effective GAAP tax rate was 56% yet its non-GAAP EPS once again managed to tumble to only 12%, which while laughable was double the 6% effective non-GAAP – and lowest ever – tax rate in Q4 2017.

Meanwhile, IBM reported Q4 revenue of $21.8 billion, which was just better than the $21.7 billion expected…

… however after three quarters of top-line growth – which followed 22 consecutive quarters of declines – IBM’s Q4 revenue once again dropped after a similar decline in Q3, sliding by 3.3% Y/Y in Q4, and reminding investors that for all its non-GAAP and tax fudges, IBM remains a melting ice cube.

And yet despite this now traditionally accounting gimmickry and deteriorating top line, investors appeared to like the results for two simple reasons: the first, IBM’s cloud revenue did not collapse:

  • Technology services & cloud platforms revenue $8.93 billion down from $9.20 billion Y/Y

The other closely watched segments also did relatively better better:

  • Cognitive solutions revenue $5.46 billion vs $5.43 billion Y/Y
  • Global business services revenue $4.322 billion vs $4.152 billion Y/Y
  • Systems revenue $2.62 billion vs $3.33 billion q/q

The second reason investors appeared impressed with IBM’s numbers is that the company now sees 2019 operating EPS at least $13.90 vs estimate $13.80. We assume all the upside is from even greater non-GAAP addbacks. The company also expects GAAP diluted earnings per share of at least $12.45, as well as free cash flow of approximately $12 billion, same as last quarter.

IBM also announced that it generated Q4 cash from operations of $4.1 billion. And as has been the case for the past several years, the company returned much all of its cash, or $3.5 billion, to shareholders through $1.4 billion in dividends and $2 billion in stock buybacks. At the end of 2018, IBM had $3.3 billion remaining in the current share repurchase authorization; for new readers, IBM has repurchased billions and billions of its stock in the past decade, which is the only reason non-GAAP EPS hasn’t imploded.

IBM ended the fourth quarter with $12.2 billion of cash on hand, down from $14.7 billion at the end of Q3. And while cash declined by $2.5 billion, debt declined by far less, with IBM reporting $45.8 billion in debt, down from $46.9 billion a quarter prior. Of course, both of these numbers will change drastically once the Red Hat deal is completed.

In short: after several strong quarters, IBM’s Q3 and Q4 results – when in addition to everything IBM decided to purchase Red Hat and massively overpaying at that – saw the return of all that investors had grown to loathe about big blue. Even so, the stock is up after hours, as investors clinged to the positive news of a modest improvement in cloud and slightly stronger guidance, although like on prior quarters don’t be surprised if IBM fades all of its after hours upside.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2DsiPqI Tyler Durden

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case of High School Coach Fired for Praying on the Field

|||Facebook/Support Coach Joe KennedyThe Supreme Court of the United States has declined to hear the case of a football coach in Washington state who was fired for praying while coaching.

Joseph Kennedy was placed on leave in 2015 for praying on the 50-yard line after games. At the time, the Bremerton School District cited Kennedy for a violation of “lawful and constitutionally-required directives” to avoid “overt, public religious displays on the football field while on duty as a coach.” The district further argued that Kennedy’s prayer left the district open to legal action as he was violating the federal and state constitutional rights of the students.

Kennedy argued that the disciplinary action was in violation of his own First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. He filed a suit against the district in 2016 in an effort to get his job back.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court, including the two conservative justices nominated by Trump, declined to hear Kennedy’s case. The conservative justices provided a written explanation for the decision.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh noted that their decision was not made in agreement with the lower court, but out of concern for “important unresolved factual questions.” The claim of free speech violations in the case were not immediately clear to the members on the court.

Though Kennedy’s appeal was rejected, the justices questioned the lower court’s understanding of free speech rights of public school teachers. Because of this, the four suggested that the lower court’s reasoning could be open to review in the future.

Kennedy received an outpouring of support across the nation throughout the ordeal. A Facebook page regularly updated primarily conservative and religious followers on the facts of the case. News of his firing even reached President Trump, who called the events “absolutely outrageous” while on the campaign trail.

When the case reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, district judges argued that Kennedy’s argument was flawed. In the appeal, Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr., said that Kennedy had a right to practice his religion while on duty in other ways, including praying in his office while drafting plays, praying “nondemonstratively” with students, and praying in private before and after games. The court believed that the 50-yard line prayer was closer to an “endorsement of a state religion” than the exercise of free speech.

from Hit & Run http://bit.ly/2Wb7ti7
via IFTTT

Can We Just Light Twitter on Fire After This Past Weekend?: Podcast

||| MSNBCOn Day 4 of the Great Covington Kerfuffle, your friendly neighborhood Reason editors—Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch and Peter Suderman—staggered into the recording booth for the Editors’ Roundtable version of the Reason Podcast, and tried to squeeze out any available lessons about journalism, social media, and getting through this great thing called life.

Along the way we talked about Buzzfeed‘s investigatory implosion, the latest in government shutdown, Kamala Harris‘ official announcement that she’s running for president, the wonderful things we learned at LibertyCon, and (of course) Baby Hitler. It might not be the podcast America needs, but certainly the one it deserves.

Subscribe, rate, and review our podcast at iTunes. Listen at SoundCloud below:

Audio production by Ian Keyser and Mark McDaniel.

Relevant links from the show:

The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran,” by Robby Soave

If You Still Think Nick Sandmann’s Smile Is Proof of Racism, You’re Seeing What You Want to See,” by Robby Soave

Twitter Suspends User Who First Spread Covington Catholic Video,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Will Donald Trump Be Impeached Over a Hotel?” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

If You Want to See the Future of Political Trolling—and Elections—Look to Alabama,” by Nick Gillespie

Trump’s Dreamer-for-Wall Proposal Isn’t a Good Faith Deal,” by Shikha Dalmia

Kamala Harris’ New Book Tries to Massage Her Record as a Prosecutor, But the Facts Aren’t Pretty,” by C.J. Ciaramella

Rather Than Running for President, Maybe Joe Biden Should Just Launch an Apology Tour,” by Scott Shackford

Justin Amash: The Libertarian Party Shouldn’t Nominate a ‘Squishy’ Republican in 2020,” by Matt Welch

Don’t miss a single Reason Podcast! (Archive here.)

Subscribe at Apple Podcasts..

Follow us at SoundCloud.

Subscribe at YouTube.

Like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter.

from Hit & Run http://bit.ly/2FHQz5x
via IFTTT