Tag: news

One month after Trump launched another 105 Tomahawk missiles at Syria, the latest US assault on a sovereign nation has been mostly forgotten, but not to Israel which keeps reminding the world that another provocation to be follower shortly by another regional war, is just a matter of time.

Amid alleged Israeli tensions that an expected retaliatory attack by Iran – whose Syria-based forces Israel has repeatedly attacked in the past month – is imminent, Energy Minister, and cabinet member Yuval Steinitz issued a direct threat against the Syrian ruler, when during a Ynet studio interview on Monday he said that, “if Syrian President Bashar Assad continues allowing the Iranians to operate out of Syria, it would be the end of him, the end of his regime.”

Responding to a question on the readiness of Israel’s home front for a possible war in the north such an approach might lead to, Steinitz said there was “no absolute readiness.”

On Sunday, Haaretz reported that Iran may soon execute the retaliatory attack that previously vowed to carry out in the wake of the airstrike on the T-4 Airbase near Homs, which the Pentagon subsequently admitted was conducted by Israel.

However, since Hezbollah is expected to be involved in firing a missile barrage at a military base on Israeli territory, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s elite Quds Force Qasem Soleimani was reported to have decided to postpone the attack to immediately after the Lebanese elections  which took place this weekend, in order to catch Israel unawares.

According to Ynet news, Soleimani and other IRGC officials have seemingly reached a conclusion — most likely with the assent of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — that US President Donald Trump had already made up his mind to suspend the 2015 nuclear deal, and that was therefore no point in waiting for May 12, when Trump is set to make his decision public.

Of course, with Israel setting the stage for an immediate retaliatory attack, it would be all too possible that a “false flag” attack is instead “launched” into Israel simply to give the IDF the green light to commence an attack on Syria or Iran.

In the Ynet interview, Steinitz also spoke about the years’ long civil war still raging in Syria, saying that Israel had thus far refrained from intervening in the internal conflict. “If Assad allows Iran to turn Syria into a forward operating base against us,” he clarified, “to attack us from Syrian soil, he should know that will spell his end.“

* * *

In a potential twist, the energy minister was then reminded of Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to Moscow on Wednesday, where he will meet President Vladimir Putin, who will most likely be less than enthused with such statements. As reported previously, on Aprul 25 Russia is set to send advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, having warned Israel of “catastrophic consequences” should the Jewish state launch another attack on Syria.

“It’s excellent that the premier is going,” Steinitz countered. “He has engendered unprecedented dialogue with Putin. Russia is an important superpower with which we have a lot of mutual interests.”

“Sometimes there are also conflicts of interest,” he continued, “but usually our interests converge. Everyone should understand, however, that certain things are red lines for us. If anyone is interested in maintaining Assad’s survival, they should tell him to prevent missile and drone attacks on Israel.”

When asked if that meant Israel might assassinate Assad, Steinitz had a witty retort, saying any assassination of Assad would be his own doing: “He will have his blood on his head.“

Steinitz also suggested that his remarks did not reflect Israeli government policy, saying, “I’m not talking about any concrete proposal.” Nevertheless asked how Israel could go about bringing an end to Assad, the Cabinet member explained that a similar dilemma existed regarding Lebanon in the past. “We deliberated whether the fact that Hezbollah was attacking us from Lebanon meant that we would only retaliate against Hezbollah or also strike at Lebanon.“

“Assad can permit them to attack Israel from Syria soil, or not. He can permit them to bring in missiles, antiaircraft systems and drones into Syria, or not, and if he does—he should know there is a price tag,” the minister concluded ominously.

Meanwhile, one week after his “huge” revelation that Iran was, at one point, developing nuclear weapons ended up being a giant dud on the international arena, Netanyahu commented on the Iranian threat at the beginning of a Sunday coalition meeting, saying, “we are determined to block Iran’s aggression against us, even if this means a (military) conflict. Better now than later. We do not want escalation but we are ready for any scenario.”

The premier also asserted that Israel maintained “full freedom of action to defend itself” and “explained” that in recent months, the IRGC have “transferred advanced weaponry to Syria in order to attack us both on the battlefield and on the home front, including weaponized UAVs, ground-to-ground missiles and Iranian anti-aircraft batteries that would threaten air force jets,” the prime minister said.

For now, neither Syria nor Iran have attacked Israel despite the avalanche of pre-retaliatory rhetoric.

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Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

It was refreshing to read the response of Federal Judge T. S. Ellis III to a squad of prosecutors from Robert Mueller’s office who came into his Alexandria, Virginia, court to open the case against Paul Manafort, erstwhile Trump campaign manager, for money-laundering shenanigans dating as far back as 2005. Said response by the judge being:

“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud. You really care about getting information that Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever.”

Judge Ellis’s concise summation was like a spring zephyr clearing out a long winter’s fog of unreality in our national politics – the idea that Mueller’s mission has been anything but the Deep State’s ongoing crusade to nullify the 2016 election.

In the meantime of the past year, Mueller has been additionally burdened by obvious misconduct in the FBI and its parent agency, the Department of Justice, which makes Mueller himself look like the instrument of a cover-up, or at least a massive organized distraction from the misdeeds of the Deep State itself.

Source: Ben Garrison

I was never a Trump supporter or voter, but it seems to me he deserves to succeed or fail as President on his own merits (or lack of). It’s much more disturbing to me to see the runaway train that federal prosecution has turned into, along with orchestrated intrigues of FBI and DOJ officials at the highest level. These are of a piece with the creeping surveillance of all Americans, and the collusion of multiple intelligence agencies with social media companies and what used to be the respectable organs of the news, especially The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN — all of which are behaving like Grand Inquisitors in a medieval religious hysteria.

Judge Ellis’s remarks also speak to a growing consensus that the Russia “collusion” or “meddling” story is a phantom, if not a fabrication of the FBI itself, and that Robert Mueller’s appointment to investigate it was illegitimate from the start. In any case, it seems, for now, to be going nowhere, except maybe ricocheting back at itself — because more and more it looks like Mueller is there only to defend the reputation of the agency. Also, for now, the FBI and DOJ are engaged in a war of wills with both houses of congress. Senator Charles Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and members of the House Intelligence Committee are battling Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for official documents that he refuses to produce. It only makes the FBI and DOJ look like rogue agencies.

Now Judge Ellis is asking to see unredacted memoranda spelling out Mueller’s exact commission as Special Counsel, to determine just where his authority begins and ends. Ellis is apparently familiar with the stratagems casually employed by overzealous federal prosecutors that can look like dirty pool – for instance, turning witnesses with janky charges, setting perjury traps, or, in the separate case of General Flynn, threatening to bankrupt a person for lawyers’ fees to defend himself against Mickey Mouse charges.

The Deep State – and when I use that term, I mean the swollen, entrenched, permanent federal bureaucracy and their water-carrier corps of lobbyists, policy wonks, contractors, and media mouthpieces – may not get away with this inquisition. It’s possible that Judge Ellis may, at least, send the Manafort case to a different jurisdiction, the Eastern District Court of Virginia, if he doesn’t throw the case out altogether on the grounds of prosecutorial overreach. The latter would be a blow against Special Counsel Mueller. It ought to be grounds for his dismissal. And what’s left of the Russia case after that? General Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to FBI agents about whether he had a conversation with the Russian ambassador?

Behind the disintegrating RussiaGate campaign is a much deeper, darker swamp of official misconduct at the FBI and DOJ, for which there is already a ton of evidence that has been made public and which seems worthy of prosecution.

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The past month has seen a flurry of dramatic correlation shifts and changes across key US and global assets – traditionally an indication that a major market transition is upon us – with the most notable move being the sudden positive correlation spike between the USD and US Treasury yields, as yield-differential mysteriously recoupled after a year of forcing FX strategists to goalseek tortured explanations why surging US yields failed to push the dollar higher.

All that changed recently, but what is most interesting and what has gotten relatively little discussion, is what was the catalyst that unleashed this positive correlation between the USD and rates, one which as JPM said over the weekend, “could be as disruptive to global markets as the reversal of the correlation between stocks and bonds in February.”

For the answer, look to Beijing, because it was here that something unexpectedly snapped mid-way through April. For those who may have forgotten what it was, here is a reminder from Bank of America:

April 17th Chinese surprised with an easing of monetary policy; this was the trigger for US dollar strength

And not only dollar strength, but bond weakness too: because it was almost as if a switch was flipped in the middle of the ongoing escalating Trade War with Trump, when Beijing suddenly decided to send a message, how easy it is to not only send the dollar soaring, but also unleash havoc among US risk assets.

In any event, China’s dovish capitulation, prompted a global echo and in the past 2 weeks, hawkish central banks including the BoE, BoC, Riksbank, and even the ECB, all turned dovish; this left the Fed (and the central bank of Argentina, of course, which hiked rates by 12.75% in just 5 days although we can ignore that for now) as the long hawk, a clear US dollar positive, and more importantly, EM FX negative, something we will touch on momentarily.

Meanwhile, as the dollars surged, so did Treasury yields, and just over a week after the start of Chinese easing, US 10Y Yields spiked, briefly rising above 3.00%, a level which it turns out, is now considered the “magic number” on Wall Street, above which risk assets start to crumble.

Here, once again, is Bank of America, which reminds us that in the latest Fund Manage Survey, respondents said that 3.5% is the level they will shift from equities to bonds, down from 3.6% a month earlier. So, as BofA’s Michael Hartnett notes, “it should not be a surprise if reallocation starts before yields get to 3.5%. Indeed, as we breached 3% the following asset classes all suggested that the 3-3.5% range would become “painful” if not accompanied by much stronger economic data.“

Case in point, banks, homebuilding stocks, US dollar, EM, yield curve all suggested 3% on the 10-year Treasury yield was the magic number.

• Lower US bank stocks: rise in rates was shifting from a “good” rise to a “bad” rise (financials underperformed utilities by 1250bps since mid-March)
• Lower US homebuilding stocks: a good lead indicator of interest rates, homebuilding stocks are saying the Fed is making a “policy mistake”

But the biggest “tell” that any increase in the dollar – and the 10Y yield above 3.00% – would be a market destabilizing event, came from the Emerging Markets, where “exhibit A” was the following amazing chart showing an unmistakable correlation between the outperformance of the Dollar, and the underperformance of Emerging Market Debt.

Here, as Hartnett again chimes in, the higher US rates finally caused higher US dollar (courtesy of the PBOC), at which point “EM started to crack.“

But while many have pointed at the collapse in the Turkish Lira, the Argentine Peso, and, more recently, the Indonesia Rupiah, as cracks in the EM narrative, the truth is that many of these are idiosyncratic stories.

So how can one decide if the Emerging Market turmoil is about to sweep across the entire sector, and result in DM contagion? According to Bank of America the answer is simple:

“EM FX never lies and a plunge in Brazilian real toward 4 versus US dollar is likely to cause deleveraging and contagion across credit portfolios.”

In other words, the best indicator of imminent emerging market turmoil is shown in the chart below: if and when the BRL starts sliding, and approaces 4, it may be a good time to panic.

And just in case that was not enough, Hartnett also has a secondary “fail safe” EM-stress indicator:

Tremors in the periphery: 3% + rally in US$ has caused EM tremors (ARS, INR) at a time of peak EM debt/equity inflows ($371bn)…EMB <107.50 contagious

This means that once EMB, the JPM Emerging Market Bond ETF, drops to 107.50 – the level it hit right after the Trump election – it will be time to get out of Emerging Dodge.

 

 

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After two months of failed negotiations between the Five Star Movement, the Democratic Party and the center-right coalition (which includes both the far-right Northern League as well as Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia), Italian President Sergio Mattarella has offered the first sign that Italy is likely headed for another election after what was billed as a final push to form a coalition ended in failure on Monday.

During remarks to reporters on Monday, Mattarella called on Italy’s political parties to back a neutral government that would govern the country until the end of December, when new elections would be held, according to Italian newspaper Il Sole 24.

The technocratic government would govern until an agreement is reached, or until the new elections are held, and would step down if an agreement is reached before the election.

Still, the news is a blow to the Five Star Movement (M5S), which won the largest share of any single political party during the March election (though the center-right coalition came out with a plurality). Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio has said he’d be willing to consider somebody else for prime minister, and Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant Lega Nord has rejected the idea of a non-partisan prime minister and called for elections in July, a demand that Five Star has seconded. 

Mattarella said elections in the summer are possible, but that it would be difficult for people to vote. Should Italian politicians reject the technocratic solution, Mattarella said elections would likely be held in the fall.

Of course, Italy’s Five Star Movement, which has grown from a semi-serious political party founded by comedian Beppe Grillo into a national political force, has only seen its popularity increase since the March vote, according to polling data.

We speculated earlier that talks between Five Star and the League broke down because of League leader Matteo Salvini and his enormous ego.

Di Maio, whose anti-corruption movement won around 32 percent of the vote, said he would give up his claim on the premiership if the League agreed to enter into a coalition with them — as long as they get rid of their scandal-tainted coalition ally, Silvio Berlusconi.

M5S has rejected the Northern League’s overtures because they don’t approve of the League’s coalition partner, Silvio Berlusconi, a former prime minister of Italy, who leads the more moderate Forza Italia. Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in 2013.

But Salvini, whose coalition won 37.5% of the national vote compared with M5S’s 33%, turned down Di Maio’s offer. However, the League alone received just 22% of the vote.

Mattarella also warned that calling for another round of elections could harm markets, as investors worried about worsening political instability in one of Europe’s most indebted countries.

In Italy, the president is the official head of state and the steward of the country’s government. It is not generally viewed as a political position.

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In recent months, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has not been shy of criticizing the establishment as much as the rest of the media-moonscape criticizes Trump. Having jabbed at “too conflicted” Mueller, urging him to step down, and daring to point out that it was Trump who started the trade wars, but China; the authors turned their angry gaze at the mystery of Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn’s guilty plea… especially considering FBI agents said he did not commit a crime…

Via The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board,

One of the stranger moments of Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe is Michael Flynn’s Dec. 1, 2017 guilty plea for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The former White House national security adviser pleaded guilty to a single count of making false statements, even though then FBI director James Comey had told Congress in March that the two FBI agents who interviewed Mr. Flynn believed he hadn’t lied.

These columns reported this Comey testimony based on sources at the time of Mr. Flynn’s plea (“The Flynn Information,” Dec. 1, 2017). Now comes confirmation from a less redacted version of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia report released late Friday.

On pages 53-54, the report notes that in March 2017 “Director Comey testified to the Committee that ‘the agents . . . discerned no physical indications of deception. They didn’t see any change in posture, in tone, in inflection, in eye contact. They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.’” The quotes are from the committee transcript of Mr. Comey’s remarks.

The report goes on to say that then Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe “confirmed the interviewing agent’s initial impression and stated that the ‘conundrum that we faced on their return from the interview is that although [the agents] didn’t detect deception in the statements that he made in the interview . . . the statements were inconsistent with our understanding of the conversation that he had actually had with the ambassador.’”

Recall that the inconsistency concerned whether Mr. Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence had said publicly that Mr. Flynn had not discussed sanctions, and once it came to light that he had, Mr. Flynn resigned.

But Mr. McCabe also nonetheless told the House Intelligence Committee that “‘the two people who interviewed [Flynn] didn’t think he was lying, [which] was not [a] great beginning of a false statement case.’”

All of this relates to the mystery of why Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements. It made little sense for him to lie since as a seasoned intelligence officer he would know the U.S. eavesdrops on the Russian ambassador. He also willingly sat for the FBI interview with no legal counsel, suggesting he felt no risk in doing so.

Certainly the statements about the FBI agent’s impression of Mr. Flynn would not have helped Mr. Mueller’s case at trial had Mr. Flynn not pleaded guilty. The plea deal noted that Mr. Flynn’s sentence would depend on his “assistance in the investigation,” and perhaps Mr. Flynn felt he lacked the money to defend himself in court. He also may have wanted to spare his son, whom Mr. Mueller was also targeting.

In any case it is a dubious practice for a prosecutor to force a cooperating witness to plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit. Perhaps Mr. Flynn is supplying testimony behind the scenes that puts all of this in a better light, but the facts on the public record to date don’t reflect well on Mr. Mueller’s prosecutorial tactics toward Mr. Flynn.

The House report also reflects poorly on Mr. Comey’s credibility.

Despite the transcript of his testimony, Mr. Comey at least three times on his book tour has denied telling Congress that the FBI agents did not think Mr. Flynn was lying.

“Did you tell lawmakers that FBI agents didn’t believe former national security adviser Michael Flynn was lying intentionally to investigators?” Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Mr. Comey on April 26.

“No,” Mr. Comey replied, adding that “I didn’t believe that and didn’t say that.”

Asked a similar question by NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mr. Comey responded, “Not true. And I don’t know what people heard me say, if they’re reporting it accurately, what they heard me say, they misunderstood. But that’s not accurate.”

Perhaps Mr. Comey’s memory is faulty, as happens with human beings, though then he might commiserate with Mr. Flynn. On the other hand, Mr. Comey has jailed many Americans for false statements to the FBI, with no accommodation for mistakes of memory.

The latest House release also shows again the games that the Department of Justice and FBI are playing with redactions. The FBI has for weeks fought Intelligence Committee requests to declassify this portion of its report, though the only harm from public knowledge is to Mr. Comey’s reputation and to the credibility of Mr. Mueller’s prosecution.

The FBI has a conflict of interest in overseeing redactions given that the behavior of its leaders and agents are in question. This is one more reason for President Trump to use his authority to declassify all of the Russia 2016 files.

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It is no longer a secret that Elon Musk’s car-making company is a cash-burning monster that now admittedly needs to raise more cash.

And while the bond market remains extremely skeptical of Musk’s visions, his threats of a “short burn of the century” this weekend…

Oh and uh short burn of the century comin soon. Flamethrowers should arrive just in time.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2018

Seems to have spooked a few weak shorts out of the stock (but not the bonds)…

So the question everyone is asking is simple – is this the last desperate ‘vinegar strokes’ of the new millennium’s ‘Enron’? Or does Musk have yet another rabbit up his sleeve (mixing metaphors wildly)?

Today we may have got the answer.

As The Daily Caller’s Jason Hopkins reports, California is widely expected to become the first state in the U.S. to require solar panel installations for nearly all new homes.

The California Energy Commission will vote Wednesday on whether to enact a sweeping new mandate that will artificially propagate the state’s solar energy sector. If passed, the proposed rule will require solar panels to be installed in all new homes, apartment buildings and condos up to three stories high, beginning on Jan. 1, 2020. Exceptions will be made for homes that are blocked by trees or taller buildings, or can’t fit a solar panel. The five-member commission is expected to pass the measure.

“California is about to take a quantum leap in energy standards,” Bob Raymer, technical director for the California Building Industry Association, stated in a local interview published Friday. “No other state in the nation mandates solar, and we are about to take that leap.”

The impending mandate will radically change the energy industry in The Golden State. Only 15 to 20 percent of new single-family homes in California currently use solar installations. A vast amount of new homeowners will soon be forced to invest in solar panels whether they like it or not — and at a steep price. As Jason Hopkins continues…

The mandate will raise the cost of building a new home by around $25,000 to $30,000. Supporters of the measure point to an estimated $50,000 to $60,000 savings on energy bills over 25 years to offset these initial costs. These savings, however, are largely possible through subsidized rates, where panel owners are compensated for the energy they put back into the grid at a retail rate, not the cheaper wholesale rate.

The vote Wednesday by the California Energy Commission is just the latest in what has been a bullish environmental agenda in the state.

Jerry Brown, the state’s outgoing Democratic governor, has pushed legislation that makes the state’s renewable portfolio standard reach 33 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2030. More notably, state leaders have waged war on the White House regarding vehicle emissions standards. The Trump administration is pushing to ease regulations on the car industry, but Brown has vowed to keep his own, stricter standards in place. Such a different emission standard between the federal government and California, the country’s most populated state, would wreak confusion on the car industry.

The move to mandate solar panels for every home could further complicate a growing dilemma. Utility companies are already struggling to operate in a state that is increasingly diversifying its energy portfolio, pushing more customers to turn away from investor-owned utilities and creating a more volatile market. Uncertain of how many customers they will have in the future, utilities are becoming more hesitant to sign long-term contracts with power generators.

Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, is sounding the alarm bell, warning that California might be at risk of a second energy crises. Customers could soon be subjected to skyrocketing electricity prices and rolling blackouts — unless the state leaders act accordingly. Picker’s office released a report Thursday explaining how they can properly reform the electricity market and avoid an energy shortage similar to the one California experienced in 2000 and 2001.

So, will Solar City get the contract to install non-Chinese, made-in-America solar panels on all new homes in California at the Government’s behest and subsidized by the US taxpayer?

We shall see, but one thing is for certain, without the intervention of the US government and its benevolent taxpaying sheeple, Musk would be more ‘no jobs’ than ‘steve jobs’.

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Authored by Alex Kimani via SafeHaven.com,

To err is human–it’s a fact of life that people make mistakes, all the time. Fortunately for the majority of us, our biggest mistakes on the job end up being quite tolerable and good learning experiences. But in the much bigger corporate arena where multi-billion-dollar deals are par for the course, blunders can be exceedingly costly whether they involve striking regrettable deals or passing up great opportunities.

A recurring theme of hubris tends to underline many corporate gaffes though some are plainly due to poor judgement.

Without further ado, the brass tucks. Here are the top 5 corporate blunders in history:

#1 Excite Fails to Buy a Young Google

They say never to despise small beginnings. Well, that’s exactly what former search giant Excite is guilty of. Back in 1999, Excite was the second-largest search engine behind only Yahoo, while Google was a little-known upstart.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, then offered to sell the startup to Excite for $1 million at first, an offer that Excite turned down. They then lowballed the offer to $750,000, a screaming bargain in hindsight, yet Excite still passed up.

Several reasons have been advanced to explain Excite’s strange decision. But we all know it turned out to be one of the biggest lost opportunities considering how Google has grown to become the world’s largest search company, with assets worth about $210 billion and an enterprise value of $620 billion. Ouch.

#2 Bank of America’s Buyout of Countrywide Savings

When ailing subprime lender, Countrywide Savings , offered itself for sale to Bank of America for $4.1 billion in 2008, BofA CEO Ken Lewis thought it was a ‘rare opportunity’ too good to pass up. What he did not know was that he was getting the short end of the stick.

The most recent financial crisis was beginning to take shape, and the deal would end up saddling the giant bank with $40 billion in fines and settlements, BofA shares losing $500 billion in the market as well as costing Lewis his job. Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo got off a lot more lightly, managing to keep most of his $83 million paycheck for the deal after a couple of out of court settlements.

#3 Time Warner Merger with AOL

The dotcom crash of 2000-2002 wiped off $5 trillion in market value of tech companies in one of the worst episodes of capital destruction–and both Time Warner and AOL know all about it.

In 2001, Time Warner, a media powerhouse that was captivating the world with shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City, together with America Online, the dominant provider of dial-up internet to millions of Americans, decided it was time for a tie-up.

On paper, the merger looked like a marriage made in heaven, with Time Warner getting its hands on AOL’s 25 million subscribers, while AOL would benefit from its partner’s extensive cable network and rich content.

So a deal was struck, AOL happily paying $162 billion for Time Warner’s assets. But the promised synergies never materialized. By late 2002, the value of the combined entity had cratered from $260 to a measly $20 billion in the worst M&A deal in corporate history.

#4 Blockbuster Rejects Offer to Buy Netflix

Baby boomers are probably as closely acquainted with Blockbuster Video as millennials are with Netflix. In 2000, Blockbuster was the biggest name in video rental stores when Netflix, a 2-year old mail DVD startup, offered to sell its in-store business to Blockbuster for $50 million.

According to Netflix’s CFO Barry McCarthy, Blockbuster’s executives literally laughed Netflix’s officials out of the building, a move they probably rue up to this day.

Ten years later, Blockbuster went belly up, killed by none other than Netflix’s internet video streaming business while Netflix has gone on to become a $140 billion (enterprise value) giant. Meanwhile, the rest of us wtih no affiliations to Blockbuster are probably glad things worked out the way they did.

#5 Ron Wayne sells his 10% stake in Apple

Ever heard of the guy who, back in 2010, bought two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins? Well Laszlo Hanyecz, as he is called, just exchanged an asset that would have been worth a cool $9.2 million at current Bitcoin prices for two pizzas worth $25.

Hanyecz though has nothing on Ron Wayne, one of the three original founders of Apple Inc., who in 1976 sold his 10-percent stake in the company for $800.

If you are a stickler for detail, $800 in 1976 is worth $3,553.50 in 2018 after adjusting for inflation. Not too shabby, but nothing like the $90 billion that Wayne’s stake would be worth today.

Wayne was convinced that co-founder Steve Jobs’ reckless spending would drive the company to the ground. Well, Apple did nearly go bankrupt in the mid-1990s–in Job’s absence. Ironically, Steve Job’s return to the company in 1996 is credited with bringing it from the brink.

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The Dollar is practically unchanged (amid some volatility) and Treasury yields are officially unchanged across the entire curve… but that doesn’t stop the short-squeeze continuing to lift Nasdaq stocks 1% higher and the S&P back to its 50DMA…

Just keep buying…

 

With “Most Shorted” stocks now up 5% from Thursday European close…

 

Lifting the S&P 500 to its 50DMA, having bounced off its 200DMA

 

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