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Today’s much anticipated – yet somewhat understated – Apple event promises some new iPhones, along with the possibility of a new Apple Watch, and maybe some updated MacBooks. Additionally, the tech giant is set to announce pricing for its forthcoming streaming TV service highlighting the company’s shift from hardware to services as the new growth engine.

As Reuters notes, while the iPhone still makes up more than half of Apple’s sales, Tuesday’s event may nudge it off center stage after a decade in the limelight, as analysts suggest Apple is in a “holding pattern” until it rolls out 5G phones with faster mobile data speeds next year.

The new strategy shift (to services), which Apple hinted at an event in March where it gave some details about the streaming TV service, comes as iPhone sales have declined year-over-year for the past two fiscal quarters and investors are fixed on the growth potential for services. Questions about how Apple will price its television service, and whether it will bundle it with its streaming music products, will weigh on the minds of Wall Street and analysts just as much as whether the Apple TV hardware box gets an upgrade or how many cameras the iPhone has. Apple has not yet given a specific launch date or price.

“This is the first time we’ll get to see Apple’s strategy with all three parts of the business,” said Ben Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies.

However, with streaming content, Apple is entering a crowded field but it’s all analysts have to cling to to maintain their high price targets as the new iPhones will feature better cameras, and perhaps new chips to help handle the work of sensors on the device, but few new blockbuster features.

But, while you are all “waiting for 5G”, here is Valuewalk’s Sheeraz Raza detailing what to expect from the iPhone 11 (or XI – will probably need a rename in China?)

If we believe in the rumors, Apple is bringing forward a whole new design for the rear camera, which to be really honest is not too pretty to look at.

Apart from that, the design is mostly similar to iPhone X. According to the rumors, there would be three iPhone 11 models that would be released: iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Have a look at the infographic below to know more about the features that we are expecting from these new iPhones:

iPhone 11 would be the cheapest among all, but not the most compact. It would come with a 6.1-inch LCD display, while the iPhone 11 Pro with come with 5.8-inch OLED display, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max with come with massive 6.5-inch OLED display.

The Pro and the pro max come with Apple pencil support, while the iPhone 11, unfortunately, would not support Apple pencil. So, if you already have an Apple pencil, you will be now able to use it with iPhone pro and iPhone pro max.

Other than that, all the new iPhones will now come with A13 chipset, Face ID, Wi-Fi 6, 12Mp front camera, and bilateral wireless charging. Unfortunately, you won’t get to see under-display fingerprint scanner in the iPhone yet.

For those who are a big fan of 3D touch would also be a little bit disappointed since the newer iPhone would not have that.

The most debatable topic regarding the new iPhones currently is the design of the camera. The new rear camera design to be really honest looks weird and is something that is not expected from Apple.

On the iPhone 11, you will get to see two 12MP cameras, while on the pro and pro max you will get to see an array of three 12MP Cameras.

Talking about the storage and RAM on the new iPhones, iPhone 11 comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB/256GB/512GB storage options. iPhone 11 Pro, on the other hand, comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB/256GB/512GB storage options. Last but not the least, iPhone 11 Pro Max comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB/256GB/512GB storage options.

According to rumors, users will get to see a significant improvement in the battery. iPhone 11 will run on a 3110 mAH battery, iPhone pro will run on 3190+ mAH battery, and pro max will run on 3500+ mAH battery.

Looking at all the rumors, we won’t get to see a lot of changes or improvements as compared to previous iPhone X models, other than the giant weird looking camera setup that we are sure would not be loved by many.

*  *  *

In terms of pricing, most analyst expect prices to remain unchanged from the last year’s models, between $749 and $1,099 depending on size and features.

“I believe we are in an incremental holding pattern until 5G. Customers with iPhone X and beyond likely won’t have a reason to upgrade,” said Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy.

What will the stock price do? Most iPhone launches have resulted in positive price performance 60 days after launch (but the last one disappointed)…

*  *  *

You can watch Apple’s iPhone 11 keynote live here:

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

It’s undoubtedly better to leave some stories alone, and this may be one of them. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov perhaps put it best when he called it “pulp fiction” (and what’s more American than that?). But this one is so exemplary of how the news is cooked up for you these days, let’s have a go anyway.

What makes this story so ideal for its purpose is that it involves intelligence and state secrets, so the news outlet that runs it doesn’t have to prove a thing; it can simply say it’s not authorized to divulge what it doesn’t write, while hinting it does know. Plus, it can use any number of covert sources.

But in the process, a damning picture can still be painted. And if that picture involves Donald Trump, and it’s CNN that’s painting it, well, we know what it’s going to look like. Here’s how it started at CNN yesterday (with some additions from today):

US Extracted Top Spy From Inside Russia In 2017

In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN. A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.

The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel. The disclosure to the Russians by the President, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter.

At the time, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding the covert source, known as an asset.[..]

Asked for comment, Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, told CNN: “CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.”

[..] White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, “CNN’s reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.”

The removal happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies and Congress. Those concerns continued to grow in the period after Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov. Weeks after the decision to extract the spy, in July 2017, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg and took the unusual step of confiscating the interpreter’s notes.

Afterward, intelligence officials again expressed concern that the President may have improperly discussed classified intelligence with Russia, according to an intelligence source with knowledge of the intelligence community’s response to the Trump-Putin meeting. Knowledge of the Russian covert source’s existence was highly restricted within the US government and intelligence agencies. According to one source, there was “no equal alternative” inside the Russian government, providing both insight and information on Putin.

Pretty bad, right? Well, we’re not done just yet. Here’s the BBC adding its two cents:

US Extracted High-Level Spy From Inside Russia In 2017, Reports Say

Russian media named the spy as former presidential administration official Oleg Smolenkov. The Kommersant newspaper said Mr Smolenkov went on holiday with his family to Montenegro in 2017 and disappeared, before a man with the same name and a woman with the same name as Mr Smolenkov’s wife purchased a house in the US state of Virginia, near Washington DC. Russian reports said Mr Smolenkov had worked for Yury Ushakov, a senior aide to President Putin.

Asked by the BBC on Tuesday about the reports, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Mr Smolenkov had worked for the presidential administration but denied that he had held a high-level position, adding that he had been sacked. Mr Peskov described the US media coverage of the reported extraction as “pulp fiction”.

There was no suggestion on Tuesday that President Trump directly compromised the source in Russia, and reports said that widespread media speculation about US intelligence conclusions had contributed to the decision to extract the source. Last year, Russian operatives travelled to England and used a nerve agent in an assassination attempt against a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, who had spied for the British.

Isn’t it just lovely how they manage to throw in Skripal there at the end? Took a bit of stretching, but the BBC is plenty flexible.

Okay, so this alleged spy is extracted (or “exfiltrated”) by US intelligence, and then buys a home in Virginia. But not only that, he buys it under his own name. Presumably so that if Putin wants to find the man who divulged all those secrets for 10 years+, he can just Google him. Here’s NBC:

Possible Russian Spy For CIA Now Living In Washington Area

A former senior Russian official is living in the Washington area under U.S. government protection, current and former government officials tell NBC News. NBC News is withholding the man’s name and other key details at the request of U.S. officials, who say reporting the information could endanger his life. Yet the former Russian government official, who had a job with access to secrets, was living openly under his true name.

An NBC News correspondent went to the man’s house in the Washington area and rang the doorbell. Five minutes later, two young men in an SUV came racing up the street and parked immediately adjacent to the correspondent’s car. The men, who identified themselves only as friends of the Russian, asked the correspondent what he was doing there.

[..] The [New York] Times said the source was “the American government’s best insight into the thinking of and orders” from Putin, and was key to the CIA’s assessment that Putin favored Donald Trump’s candidacy and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

The Times previously reported that the source was considered so sensitive that then-CIA Director John Brennan had declined to refer to the person in the top secret Presidential Daily Brief during the final months of the Obama administration. Brennan sent reports from the source to the president and a small group of top national security aides in a separate, white envelope to assure its security, the Times reported.

[..] NBC News has not confirmed that the Russian living near the nation’s capital fed the CIA information about Russian election interference. But for reasons that NBC News is withholding, he fits the profile of someone who may have had access to information about Putin’s activities and who would have been recruitable by American intelligence officials.

Two former FBI officials told NBC News they believe he is the source referred to in the CNN and New York Times report. The Russian will likely be moved from the place he is currently living in the interest of keeping him safe, current and former officials said.

He will be moved in the interest of keeping him safe. That is just brilliant. What, you think Putin will be upset at no longer being able to Google his whereabouts?

To remain fair, let’s give RT some space, too, shall we?

Was Key CIA Spy ‘Extracted’ From Moscow Over #Russiagate Fears?

Media outlets in Russia immediately began speculating as to the identity of the alleged mole, quickly settling on Oleg Smolenkov, state advisor of the third class who had worked at the Russian embassy in Washington before 2010. Smolenkov took his wife and three children on vacation to Montenegro on July 14, 2017, whereupon they vanished without a trace. The police have been investigating their disappearance as possible murder.

[..] Russian Senator Franz Klintsevich, deputy head of the Defense and Security Committee, dismissed CNN’s story as “fake” and “carrying out orders for another attempt to discredit Trump,” according to TASS. Most of the US mainstream media outlets spent the past three years promoting the notorious ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory on behalf of the Democrats, and have refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing even though special counsel Robert Mueller failed to find anything to incriminate the president after a two-year investigation.

Moreover, CNN and MSNBC have hired a number of former intelligence officials, whose fingerprints have been all over ‘Russiagate,’ as anti-Trump pundits.

John Brennan, James Clapper, here’s looking at you. There was no need today to read much further in order to find out that the secret info Trump is accused of divulging to “the Russians” had already been published first by no other than…CNN on March 31 2017. There was no secret. Other than perhaps, says Aaron Maté, that Israel was the source. But trust us, Putin would have known that.

After the Mueller report fiasco, one would think the media who don’t like Trump would be more careful with their reporting, and before reporting it. But they just keep at it.

In the process, as quoted above, through their false reporting and false claims, it’s they who are endangering lives, not Donald Trump:

Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, told CNN:

“CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.” [..]

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said,

 “CNN’s reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.”

It’s not just the White House, the CIA itself says it too.

Asking for a friend: You think the country’s still capable of having a normal conversation?

Just in case the last few disappointing payrolls reports weren’t sufficient to warn the general public that the US economy is slowing, moments ago we got the latest JOLTS which confirmed that the US labor market is going through a rough patch, as the total number of job openings dropped again, sliding to 7.217 million, below the 7.331 million expected, and not only below the downward revised June print of 7.248 million, but was the lowest since February.

That said, even with the slowing number of job openings, there was still more than 1.2 million more job opening than unemployed workers; in fact there have now been more US job openings than unemployed workers for a record 17 consecutive months.

It wasn’t all bad news though: after last month’s sharp drop in the rate of hiring, total hires surged by 237K to 5.953 million, just shy of the record set in April with 5.991 million, and now modestly above where the payrolls implied number suggests:

The spike in hiring meant that from an annual contraction, hiring once again rebounded into the green, rising by 2.1% in July, up from a -2.0% drop in June.

Finally, in another bullish reversal, we saw the so-called “take this job and shove it” indicator – the total level of “quits” which shows worker confidence that they can leave their current job and find a better paying job elsewhere – reverse from last month’s disappointing drop, and in July, the number of quits surged by 130K from a 2019 low of 3.462MM to 3.592MM, just shy of the record set last August with 3.648MM.

Overall, a decidedly better JOLTS report than one would expect in light of last week’s poor payrolls number. Then again, recall that JOLTS is 2 months delayed, so we wouldn’t be surprised if next month’s JOLTs is where the real ugliness lies.

Dramatic images and footage released on Tuesday showed the rescue of four men who had been missing for more than 36 hours after early Sunday their cargo ship had capsized off the Georgia coast. 

The South Korean crew members were the last after 20 had been previously rescued by the US Coast Guard. The four had been trapped deep inside the ship and were considered “missing” into Monday – leading rescue personnel to tap on the vessel’s hull. Eventually they heard a “tap” back and drilled a hole in order the communicate with the trapped men. 

U.S. rescue workers manage to free the final crew member trapped inside a South Korean cargo vessel pic.twitter.com/TdeyYyt5kj

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 10, 2019

Monday’s harrowing and complicated rescue operation was described by Coast Guard officials speaking to CNN as follows: 

Rescuers were dropped off via helicopter and drilled a small hole in the ship to communicate with the crew members, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Phillip VanderWeit said. As they worked to make the hole large enough to let in food, water and more air, temperatures climbed to 120 degrees outside and even higher inside the boat, Reed said.

By 3 p.m. three of the crew members had been safely rescued, and the fourth was freed a few hours later, Reed said.

When the final crew member exited the boat, rescuers cheered and clapped.

The cargo ship, named the Golden Ray, was reportedly a car carrier, something believed to have contributed to its destabilizing and severe listing which occurred early Sunday before the accident.

.@USCG and salvage response teams rescue the 4 remaining #GoldenRay passengers in St. Simon Sound, #Georgia. Details here: https://t.co/LWFaneIsQQ pic.twitter.com/DwweGAbhJG

— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) September 10, 2019

The ship had capsized, and remained tipped on its side in the Port of Brunswick near St. Simons Island since Sunday. 

* * *

previously

Four crew members of a large international transport vessel went missing Sunday off Georgia after the boat began listing violently and caught fire. The vessel, identified in reports as the 656-foot Golden Ray, had 24 crew members aboard, 20 of which were rescued in a high risk US Coast Guard operation. 

CNN has reported that four South Korean crew members are still being looked for after rescue efforts were temporarily disrupted when a fire broke out on the ship.

Dramatic coast guard images showed that the boat had capsized early Sunday, tipping on its side in the Port of Brunswick near St. Simons Island.

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for four crew members after a cargo ship caught fire and capsized off the coast of Georgia. https://t.co/BrxS8jHQOR pic.twitter.com/Q8nKjRjklZ

— ABC News (@ABC) September 9, 2019

Given the Golden Ray was reportedly a car carrier, this could have contributed to its destabilizing and severe listing before the accident, though a specific cause has yet to be identified. 

#Update Evacuations of the Golden Ray’s crew continue. All vessel traffic in the Port of Brunswick is currently suspended unless approved by the @USCG Captain of the Port. #HappeningNow pic.twitter.com/F7JbdGCShU

— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) September 8, 2019

According to CNN, citing Coast Guard commander, Capt. John Reed: 

Officials are working to stabilize the leaning vessel, he said. Once that’s done, rescue efforts will continue.

“The other outcome could be that it may be deemed more appropriate to go ahead and right the vessel and de-smoke and de-water before we are able to actually get in there and locate the four individuals,” Reed told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield in an interview Sunday.

The tanker tracker site MarineTraffic.com indicated the ship was sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands and had been bound for Baltimore.

An aircrew from Coast Guard Air Station Savannah lifts members from the capsized 656-foot vehicle carrier Golden Ray in the St. Simons Sound. @WTOC11

Credit: U.S. Coast Guard District 7 PADET Jacksonville pic.twitter.com/xtSXlrpCYK

— Andrew Gorton WTOC (@AndrewGortonWx) September 8, 2019

The Coast Guard published dramatic rescue footage involving stranded crew members being lifted off the large cargo ship via helicopter, as well as some dropping into rescue boats. 

The shock of yesterday’s US Equities factor reversals will go down in infamy alongside the August 2007 “Quant Quake” and the Fed/March/April 2016 “Market-Neutral Unwind” as one of the more stunning trades in modern market history…

…And yet, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott exclaims, hilariously, nobody watching financial TV or Joe Schmoe retail investor looking at just simple Index returns in isolation (or even a more sophisticated investor looking at the Vol complex yday) would have had any idea of the calamity occurring under the surface, as it was all about a blowout in sector- and thematic- dispersion which then acted to offset / “mask” the “top down” moves.

Stepping into today’s trade and CRITICALLY as it pertains to said devastating “internals” within this US Equities performance dynamic of the past few sessions, overnight we see US Rates / USTs pausing the bleed of the past week and actually “bull-flattening” – which should help “locally” to stop the violence of the Equities “Momentum” unwind, which at its “macro core” was “kicked-on” by the recent Duration selloff / “Bear-Steepening” in US Rates.

But for now, Nasdaq is notably underperforming…

Just how unprecedented was the “Momentum Shock” unwind?  Yesterday’s -7.7% move in US Equities “1Y Price Momentum Factor” was the second largest 1d drawdown in the history of our factor data going back to 1984 (the worst day being -8.2% on April 4th, 2009), while my US Equities HF L/S model was -3.3% on the day, tied for the second-worst 1d performance move for the leveraged fund proxy since the jarring 2015 “Growth Scare” trade (all of which encompassed a China FX deval, a disinflationary “Crude Shock,” US HY E&P default scare, a one-quarter US Earnings recession and the first Fed hike of the cycle).

What would make the Momentum unwind stop or pause?  As mentioned above, a resumption of the Duration / Rates rally (particularly “bull-flattening”) would staunch the pain, and could easily be driven by more “bad global growth data” or an “dovishly inline with market expectations” ECB this week

But what could make the Momentum unwind accelerate?  Two potential catalysts I’m watching:

First is price-based, as it relates to the Nomura QIS CTA model and the level at which we would see Systematic Trend begin to deleveraging from the legacy “+100% Long” position in ED$ (ED4 is what we track), as it is the best proxy for the Leveraged Fund universe and their “grab” into the YTD Rates trade; currently we would expect reduction / selling-down of that position on a break and close in ED4 below 98.46/45, where the signal would move from “+100% Long” to just “+12% Long” as the 3m model window would “flip” to SELL (see bottom chart / table of email)

Second is the waaay out of consensus ECB scenario I put in yesterday’s first note, as outlined by our EGB Rates Strat Marco Brancolini, who made a call into the ECB that we see a “dovish surprise” from the ECB…but that perversely, it could come via a surprise twist which would actually see the long-end HIT LOWER, which in-turn would extend the recent “steepening” in Rates curves and risk accelerating the current “unwind” dynamic further.

Most importantly below, Nomura’s McElligott attempts to answer the question that every investor has been asking over the past 24 hours: 

“What does this type of “Momentum Shock” mean for forward themes and returns for both S&P and “Momentum” themes going-forward?” 

(e.g. implications for the reversal of various long-standing dynamics seen with “Growth over Value,” “Defensives over Cyclicals,” “Large Cap over Small Cap,” “Min Vol over High Beta / High Vol” etc)

We tested scenarios three scenarios:

1) a “Momentum Shock” of this magnitude (hint: a VERY small sample size as noted earlier!), and specifically,

2) the Value (“EBITDA / EV” factor) performance standalone and

3) the Value outperformance as a spread vs “1Y Price Momentum” factor at a similarly extreme level

Per said back-tests, the dates where we experienced comparable “triggers” in both tested scenarios are a rather stunning group of macro periods which were MAJOR market inflections / escalations…

PUNCHLINES:

The S&P looks to painfully just “chop” in a range both up and down, which means that traditional hedges might not do anything for you IF your single-stock / thematic tilts continue going “wrong-way” (as this is a DISPERSION issue / portfolio rebalance / rotation trade, not an index trade).

A prior extreme “Momentum Shock” test (we look at previous -6.8% or more 1d returns) shows us that “Momentum” continues to come unglued: -9.9% 2s return, -11.8% 1m, -10.6% 3m, -26.2% 6m, -27.8% 12m.

HORRIFIC FORWARD RETURNS FOR “MOMENTUM” FACTOR AFTER A COMPARABLE “SHOCK DRAWDOWNS”

And a look the DATES for prior-6.8% Momentum 1d return are particularly “compelling”: outside of yesterday, we see 3/3/16 (peak of the 2016 famed “mkt-neutral unwind” where funds experienced a massive “Momentum Shock” following the late 2015 global growth scare pivot into cyclical risk-on after the Shanghai accord / Yellen ‘weak dollar’ policy); 3/16/09 (GFC mkt bottom); 11/17/08 (post Lehman escalation into the GFC lows); 12/26/2000 (Tech bubble pop acceleration)

Prior extremes in our “Value” factor proxy where “EBITDA / EV” saw a 1d 99.5th %ile return (yesterday was actually +99.7th %Ile but we had to widen out for sample size) tells us that under prior “trigger” events, “Value” factor too chops from here out to 3m months but then EXPLODES HIGHER out 6m (+27.1% median return) and 12m (+83.3% return!)

This is possibly telling-us that either the “end of days” global growth prognostications were wrong, or that we do indeed begin to come out of Recession – either way, a BIG “Value outperformance” trade begins

Blain’s Morning Porridge, submitted by Bill Blain of Shard Capital

 “Six impossible things before breakfast…”

One of my colleagues came over this morning and said: “Bill, you have the easiest job in the World. Brexit: the gift that just keeps on giving.”  True.  For sheer horror value it’s the equivalent of lining up a whole row of cute little seal pups and handing a psychopath a baseball bat.  UK politicians could not look more stupid, even if the SAS trained them in combat stupidity.  That said, John Bercow’s valedictory last night from the Speaker’s chair was amusing stuff.  We shall miss him..  Order.. Order..

Of course, as an entirely serious market strategist (really?) I deeply resent the implication I’m being lazy by focusing on the political issues of a small country at the unfashionable end of Yoorp.  But, if I’m absolutely honest, it’s fascinating to watch this slow motion, ergot-driven, dance macabre!  I just can’t wait to see what goes humiliatingly wrong next.  (Regular readers of the Porridge may remember my contribution on the collapse of Lehman Brothers was a top 30 financial apocalypse playlist.  The Porridge has always been a more esoteric market commentary than other, perhaps, more focused views..)

And just to prove I’m not Brexit fixated, let me list all the other things I’m thinking about this morning:

• What is the ECB actually going to do this week? Why? How much will lower European rates and a resumed buy programme further distort already distorted bond markets?  How little will NIRP (Negative Interest Rate Policies) achieve in terms of stimulating European Growth?  Why are European bank stocks rising when perpetual NIRP is destroying all values, inflating financial assets, and increasing systemic bank risk?  How will more of the same improve the chances of Christine Lagarde moving the agenda forward into common fiscal policies?  What chance of fiscal agreement?  (And do note, investors in long dated German bunds are now down over 6% over the last 2 weeks on just the hint the German’s might press the stimulus button – just a hint of more pain to come?)
• What about US Corporate Debt?  Ford Cut to Junk – what are the implications for the rest of increasingly overleveraged pre-tech industries struggling to restructure and adapt?  Why is Apple sitting on a huge cash pile, but borrowing more.. (because they can), and how much more potential damage to corporate America’s leverage is going on across the sector?  Does debt matter in this low rate environment?  How do you kill Zombie Corporates in a ZIRP environment? (Head shot.. always a head shot.)
• Why are we even worrying about US/China trade negotiations?  Whatever the White House says we’re way beyond a future agreement.  The outcome is going to be increased polarisation as new supply chains develop, a new cold war emerges, and the implications of slowing, internally focused China economy are understood.  The expectations for global growth fuelled by China’s belt and road policies can be quietly forgotten.
• What about Global stocks?  Does Softbank urging We Company to pull its IPO (because it will expose how much money Softbank has lost as it tries to double up on its “Vision Fund”) represent the top of a bubble?

And a fantastic article in FT about the new Volfefe Index.  Perhaps more important are serious concerns about the chaotic White House, and how much longer the Trump administration can keep up the illusion its functional.. but hey-ho, we can’t comment from here in the UK about other nation’s dysfunctional politics, can we?

For all these and more…  I suspect none of these are questions to which there are answers people particularly want to hear. 

However, the biggest question I’m struggling with remains the UK.  We’ve watched the Conservative part immolate itself most spectacularly in recent weeks.  Regular readers will know that’s unlikely to cause me much pain or regret.  As a Scotsman I am genetically engineered to vote Red – although I shall admit I once voted Blue, but only because the other choice was Liberal which, frankly, is just a waste of ink on a ballot paper.

What I really, really want to understand is what the Labour Party offers as an alternative?  I did get out the 2017 Labour Manifesto the other day, and to be fair, there is nothing I really disagree with in terms of building a fairer country and its focus on more police officers, better health services and especially better education. (For the Record: the reason I detest the Liberals was their craven support for University Fees so they could sit in the coalition government.  They are well meaning middle class kulaks (look it up yourself) lickspittle-capitalist-lackeys who are not to be trusted!) 

I also agree with Tory Chancellor’s Sajid Javid’s plans to borrow more and spend to boost/repair the economy after 10-years of austerity. There really isn’t that much between the parties – there never rally has been.

As for all the stuff about how McDonald and Corbyn are  unreformed Marxists who are going to steal you rental flats, nationalise your watch collections, and put Somali refugees in your sitting room… sure.. it won’t happen.  Just like when Dangerous Radical Tony Blair took office in 1997 and the became the best conservative premier of all time (until he started behaving like one..)  Despite Momentum, the bulk of Labour MPs (like Tory MPs) are essentially decent.  I would expect the UK media to become even more hostile to Labour as an election approaches.

I am, however, somewhat concerned that a well-meaning Labour government will prove an even bigger disaster than the current Tory farce.  In the 2017 Manifesto Labour said it accepts the referendum result and will put the national interest first.  Yet listening to, and reading what Labour politicians are now saying, they make the Conservatives sound sensible, organised and united!  I think the official Labour Brexit policy is something like: “We will negotiate a new Brexit agreement with Brussels which we will then put to the people a choice in a second referendum. We will then campaign to remain in Europe by voting against the agreement we negotiate with Brussels.”

Oh dear..

Back to the day job… and out of time.