LinkedIn Is Getting Twittered: Here’s Why

Yesterday it was Twitter, today it is LinkedIn. Moments ago, the professional social network reported EPS that just barely beat at $0.39 vs expectations of $0.38, while revenue printed at $447.2 MM vs $437.6 MM expected. However, it is this excerpt from the LNKD release that is causing the stock to be TWTRed 10% after hours.

LinkedIn is providing guidance for the first quarter and full year of 2014:

  • Q1 2014 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $455 million and $460 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $106 million and $108 million. The company expects depreciation and amortization to be approximately $48 million, and stock-based compensation to be approximately $68 million.
  • Full Year 2014 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $2.02 billion and $2.05 billion. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be approximately $490 million. The company expects depreciation and amortization to be approximately $225 million, and stock-based compensation to be approximately $325 million.

And since the street was looking for $470 million for Q1 revenue, and $2.17 billion for full year, the stock is currently getting monkeyhammered.

Of course, with LTM PE before earnings in the four-digit range before earnings, this 10% drop means the company is back to being a blue-light special bargain… somewhere in the ultra high triple digit PE range.


    



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LinkedIn Is Getting Twittered: Here's Why

Yesterday it was Twitter, today it is LinkedIn. Moments ago, the professional social network reported EPS that just barely beat at $0.39 vs expectations of $0.38, while revenue printed at $447.2 MM vs $437.6 MM expected. However, it is this excerpt from the LNKD release that is causing the stock to be TWTRed 10% after hours.

LinkedIn is providing guidance for the first quarter and full year of 2014:

  • Q1 2014 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $455 million and $460 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $106 million and $108 million. The company expects depreciation and amortization to be approximately $48 million, and stock-based compensation to be approximately $68 million.
  • Full Year 2014 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $2.02 billion and $2.05 billion. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be approximately $490 million. The company expects depreciation and amortization to be approximately $225 million, and stock-based compensation to be approximately $325 million.

And since the street was looking for $470 million for Q1 revenue, and $2.17 billion for full year, the stock is currently getting monkeyhammered.

Of course, with LTM PE before earnings in the four-digit range before earnings, this 10% drop means the company is back to being a blue-light special bargain… somewhere in the ultra high triple digit PE range.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1d00uOf Tyler Durden

Stocks Surge To Best Day Of 2014

Early volatility around Draghi's lack of easing (and a subsequent surge in EURUSD) gave way to excess exuberance as USDJPY ramped over almost 100 pips (on absolutely no news whatsoever) on the day dragging the S&P 500 25 points higher from the day's lows, back over its 100DMA and back to unchanged to the December taper. Trannies topped the taper (+1.5% on the day) but stocks remain red on the week. All this re-risking ahead of tomorrow's major noise-soaked jobs data… Bonds sold off once again but from 10amET, which coincided with the end of the initial JPY ramp, Treasuries, gold, and the USD all trod water as stocks and JPY pushed on ahead. Systemic cross-asset class correlation surged on the day to well over 0.9. S&P and Dow have best day since Mid-December; Trannies almost best day since October – and all this before tomorrow's crucial weather-impacted jobs report – make sense to anyone? TWTR -24% at $50.

 

The only chart that matters… notice that the initial opening ramp lifted USDJPY perfectly to 102…

 

Trannies were best on the day with the Dow having its best day in almost 2 months… but they all remain lower on the week…

 

The S&P rallied back to unchanged post-Taper

 

Stocks benefitted from a pretty significatng short squeeze at the open (from yesterday's over-zealous shorting)…

 

Gold and Bonds decoupled from equity exuberance soon after the initial JPY ramp faded (and crossed 102)

 

FX was relatively quiet apart from an epic ramp in EUR on Draghi's "no QE discussion" comments and the corresponding JPY crumble…

 

Over all bond yields are up notably on the week with curve steepening… (with yields up 8-10bps from the ADP data miss)…

 

Silver is setting up fro its best week in 6 months… as copper, gold, and oil limp sideways to higher…

 

 

Charts: Bloomberg

Bonus Chart: Intraday Correlation across multiple risk factors (Stocks, bonds, FX carry, credit, and commodities) surged very systemically…

 

Bonus Bonus Chart: Twurmoil…

 


    



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Obama Considering Three Year Extension To Obamacare

While Washington debates over what is the proper explanation of the CBO’s report which explicitly states that millions of workers will drop out of the labor force over the next decade thanks to Obamacare, Obama himself may have finally thrown in the towel, realizing that the longer the full implementation of Obamacare is delayed, the longer the myth that it is a viable Ponzi scheme – as opposed to non-viable – can persist. Perhaps this explains why AP reports that the White House is now considering an extension of the president’s decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they are not compliant with the health care overhaul, according to two top industry officials.

From AP:

Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for an additional three years, stressing that no decision has been made. Policymakers are waiting to see what rate hikes health insurers plan for the insurance exchanges that are key to the overhaul’s coverage expansions.

 

“The administration is entertaining a range of options to ensure that this individual market has stability to it and that would be one thing that they could do,” he said.

 

Avalere Health is a market analysis firm, but Mendelson said his company was not advising the administration on exchange policy. He said he has had informal discussions with administration officials about the extension, but he didn’t identify them.

 

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, Joanne Peters, said “We are continuing to examine all sorts of ways to provide consumers with more choices and to smooth the transition as we implement the law.”

Earlier, Mark Bertolini, Chairman and CEO of Aetna and the nation’s third largest insurer, told analysts during his earnings call that he had heard the plans may be extended. Perhaps a more important thing Bertolini said is that his company may pull out of markets if the Medicare cuts are too high, adding that 2015 may be challenging due to medicare cuts. This may have been the final straw that pushed the administration into action.

However, even a longer extension than was rumored previously will hardly help reinstate the policies of all those millions who lost coverage in the lead up to the Obamacare enactment as insurance companies know that terms will once again change eventually, so why go through the headache of temporary reinstatement just to cut all those “non-compliant” individuals once again?

Individual policyholders were hit with a wave of cancellation notices last year because their coverage was less robust than what is required under the law, and many states allowed insurance companies to simply cancel them.

 

The wave of cancellation notices — at least 4.7 million of them — hit just when the new HealthCare.gov website was experiencing some of its worst technical problems, and it undercut the president’s well-publicized promise that if you liked your plan you could keep it.

You couldn’t.

At first the White House went into damage-control mode, arguing that many of the cancelled plans were “junk” insurance and consumers would be better off with the broader coverage available through the health care law’s new insurance markets.

 

But soon Obama was forced to reverse course, urging insurers and state regulators to allow policyholders to keep their existing plans for an additional year. Most states complied with the request.

 

Now the administration is considering adding more years to this extension to avoid another wave of problems if rates on the exchange climb too high and people are left without an affordable coverage option. Health insurers are supposed to submit by May the rates they want to charge on the exchanges next year.

Actually, the only reason why Obama is suddenly willing to compromise over every aspect of his “crowning achievement” is that finally its tactical, and strategic failure has become clear for all to see. So it would be best to enact it piecemeal, and claim success for whatever legacy aspects of the system are working, while blasting everything that his unprecedentedly complicated, centrally-planned contraption has unleashed.

Finally, why three years? Because by then Obama will be gone (absent some very radical changes to presidential term rules), and Obamacare will be someone else’s problem.


    



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Gold For Delivery Please!

By: Chris Tell at capitalistexploits.at

Government corruption. Tautology.

“The extent of corruption in Europe is ‘breathtaking’ and it costs the EU economy at least 120bn Euros, annually the European commission says.”

There you have it. This statement comes directly from the European commission in a recently published report, almost certainly an incompetent bureaucratic nightmare itself , I’ll give credit to them for even publishing this…but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

The real cost of corruption runs to multiples of what the European commission suggests. Why?

Because what is not included in this report is the corruption that exists with the revolving door between Government and bankers who have sucked trillions of dollars out of the world economy, and who continue to drive respective countries bankrupt, rape and pillage the man on the street and tell him it’s for his own good.

The corruption not mentioned in this report is that of the big banks gaming the stock market. They do this via their proprietary trading desks front running their clients. They do it by packaging up garbage mortgages and bribing the rating agencies to look the other way, rubber stamp said garbage and then flog it to the masses.

Then there is the blatant manipulation of interest rates, juicing the stock and bond markets. Yes this is a corrupt world. Thinking otherwise is like arguing that gravity doesn’t exist. The question isn’t whether manipulation is taking place, or whether the stinking pile of sinister, corrupt lunatics that are our “masters” should be fed to the nearest flesh-eating creature available. We, humble yet unapologetic market participants, can still choose how we interact in the market place.

On that note, today I present to you some interesting facts which I’ve nicked from a recent Trade Alert we sent to our subscribers. If you have yet to opt-in to this currently complimentary service, you can do so HERE, and get a copy of that alert immediately. We think it’s well worth the price… Oh, wait, it’s FREE.

Meanwhile, here’s the thesis we used to create it…

The first is a graph showing the expiring month of gold traded vs the next deliverable month for nearly 4 years.

seahorse

The traders amongst you will find the pattern here interesting. This is called an “inverted” situation, where gold for delivery in the front months trades at a premium to the back months. It is an unusual situation since there are costs associated with holding inventory. Unless the market participants believe there is an impending supply coming into the market you don’t usually see this setup.

The answer may well lie in something which Kyle Bass touched on in this interview at the AmeriCatalyst conference. He explains succinctly why he advised the University of Texas to take delivery of $1B in gold from the COMEX.

Here’s a snippet of his conversation with the head of deliverables at the COMEX:

Kyle Bass: What if 4% of the people want delivery?

Comex: Oh Kyle that never happens, we rarely get a 1% delivery.

Kyle Bass: Well what if it does happen?

Comex: Price will solve everything

Kyle Bass: OK, give me the gold

Now I’d like to show you another chart which is excerpted from the full Trade Alert

inventory

This is a graphical representation of the amount of gold in Registered Comex inventory. What is evident from this chart is that the amount of physical gold inventory at the Comex is going down. According to the latest numbers registered inventories are now at just 402,000 ounces.

At $1,200 per ounce this represents $504 Million in available gold for delivery.

We feel there is a trading opportunity where shorts make sure they’ve gotten out before settlement arrives. This has been happening for 4 years at least. All well and good. Traders take notice.

For long term investors the evidence is clear. TAKE DELIVERY, you’ll be no worse of for doing so. If this eventuates in a short squeeze paper holders will be left holding…well, paper. Running the math here, if just one small player in the gold trading game got nervous and like Kyle Bass, demanded delivery of a position limit size (equal to 3,000 contracts or 300,000 ounces), the Comex would empty fully 71.9% of its deliverable supply. But don’t worry, price will solve everything! Really?

The actual trade which our own Brad Thomas presented in the Alert is a gold miner. The company he is targeting has enjoyed a spectacular 76% collapse from its highs. The entire trade is too long to post here, so again, if you aren’t already getting our Trade Alerts go and sign up HERE and get all the sordid details.

Meanwhile, I’m reminded of some other soothing facts our friend Mark Schumacher from ThinkGrowth.com recently shared with us, and deserve repeating, when contemplating buying a stock that has done nothing but go down:

Average 3-year nominal returns when buying a down sector (since 1920s):

Down Avg. Annual Return

60% = 57%

70% = 87%

80% = 172%

90% = 240%

Average 3-year nominal returns when buying a down industry (since 1920s):

Down Avg. Annual Return

60% = 71%

70% = 96%

80% = 136%

90% = 115%

Average 3-year nominal returns when buying a down country (since the 1970s):

Down Avg. Annual Return

60% = 107%

70% = 116%

80% = 118%

90% = 156%

I’ll leave you with those figures and facts. Choose to do with it what you will. If you wish to get Brad’s alerts complimentary for a limited time you can still do so HERE.

– Chris

“Develop your own opinion. Go look at these numbers. Don’t listen to me… The key is to do your own work.” – Kyle Bass


    



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Why Warren Buffett Is Worried About Stocks

According to a 2001 Fortune interview, Warren Buffett believes that Market-Cap-to-GDP is "probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment." As Doug Short shows in the following charts, we suspect Warren is a little more than worried about the valuation of his portfolio (unless of course, it's different this time).

 

Via Doug Short of dshort.com,

 

The raw data for the "Buffett indicator" only goes back as far as the middle of the 20th century. Quarterly GDP dates from 1947, and the Fed's B.102 Balance sheet has quarterly updates beginning in Q4 1951. With an acknowledgement of this abbreviated timeframe, let's take a look at the plain vanilla quarterly ratio with no effort to interpolate monthly data or extrapolate since the end of the most recent quarterly numbers. Here is a chart I created using the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) data and charting tool.

 

 

That strange numerator in the chart title, MVEONWMVBSNNCB, is the FRED designation for Line 36 in the B.102 balance sheet (Market Value of Equities Outstanding), available on the Federal Reserve website here in PDF format.

 

For those of you who may have reservations about the Federal Reserve economists' estimation of Market Value, I can offer a more transparent alternate snapshot over a shorter timeframe. Here is the Wilshire 5000 Full Cap Price Index divided by GDP, again using the FRED repository charting tool.

 

 

So… Both the "Buffett Index" and the Wilshire 5000 variant suggest that today's market is at lofty valuations, now above housing-bubble peak in 2007.

So, given the unprecedented beta (and very little alpha) of Berkshire Hathaway's stock price to the market…

 

We suspect Warren is worried…


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nXw2bS Tyler Durden

WTF Chart Of The Day: Fun-Durr-Mentals Edition

Money on the sidelines? Em fixed? Expectations of a terrible jobs number tapering the taper? One thing we do know for absolute certain – this ramp in stocks has nothing whatsoever to do with fun-durr-mentals… as USDJPY 102 takes the S&P back to unch on the Taper and above its 100DMA.

 

USDJPY 102.000 Tagged…

 

It seems the so-called “market” liked the guilty verdict on Martoma?

Though we suspect the machines are desparate to get the S&P back to unchanged from the taper…

 

and above the 100DMA…

 

Charts: Bloomberg


    



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SAC’s Matthew Martoma Found Guilty On All Charges

And so the most lucrative insider trading case in history has just resulted in a criminal conviction.

  • MARTOMA CHARGED IN MOST LUCRATIVE INSIDER SCAM IN U.S. HISTORY
  • MARTOMA ACCUSED OF ILLEGAL TRADES TIED TO ALZHEIMER’S DRUG
  • EX-SAC FUND MANAGER MARTOMA FOUND GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES
  • MARTOMA ACCUSED OF ILLEGAL TRADES TIED TO ALZHEIMER’S DRUG

Hopefully Steve Cohen’s alleged hush money which bought Martoma’s allegiance and silence will be worth it (and still there upon release) to make Martoma’s stay in Federal pound me in the ass prison – up to 25 years – more pleasurable… 


    



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