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    • For years the most exceptional of corporate brand names, Apple Inc. (AAPL) is now the quintessential company of the current bull market, relying on the kindness of the bond market to fund an aggressive stock buyback. This maneuver is perfectly in sync with today’s financial-engineering fashion.

      A year ago Apple stood astride the financial markets, attaining the highest market value ever as it topped $600 billion. The iJuggernaut’s fabulous profitability, stupendous share-price gains and cult-inspiring products nearly consumed all the capitalist oxygen in a world of muted economic growth, range-trapped stock indexes and plodding technological advances.

      More than 90% of brokerage analysts were recommending the stock, it was the most heavily owned name by hedge funds and, at its $702 peak in September 2012, was up 70% for 2012 versus less than 15% for the other 499 stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 combined.

      A well-known comeuppance

      Then came the well-known comeuppance, with stiffer competition in mobile phones, disenchantment with Apple’s new-product slate and an inefficient balance sheet draining growth expectations from Apple shares, which have lost more than 35% of their value in seven months.

      In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook and his board have acceded to the pleas of some on Wall Street to liberate some of the value of its huge but massively unproductive $140 billion in idle cash.

      A regular dividend payer since a year ago, currently at an increased $12.20-per-share annual rate, Apple is now completing the largest corporate debt offering in history, tapping the pliant capital markets for $17 billion in debt at vanishingly low interest rates.

      Read More »from With Record Bond Sale, Apple No Longer ‘Thinks Different’
    • Facebook (FB) reports after the bell today. Consensus estimates for Facebook are EPS of 13-cents on $1.44 billion in revenue. Unofficially, analysts don't care about the numbers as much as they do the story. On that front, Lee Munson, chief investment officer at Portfolio LLC, suggests investors brace themselves for a letdown.

      "I think we're going to be again disappointed by the mobile app growth," he says in the attached video. "Without that what else is there?"

      Not much as far as Wall Street is concerned. As was the case when they went public a year ago, Facebook still struggles to monetize users, particularly those migrating to mobile platforms. Any signs that FB is lagging the pace of migration from desktop to handheld will be poorly received.

      FB also needs to assuage claims that the number of users in developed markets is already shrinking. Claiming over 1 billion users is a fantastic accomplishment, but it's also about 1/3 of the entire online world. Right now most of the street is looking for growth while the reality of large numbers suggests retention of such a massive user base would be an upside surprise.

      Related: Facebook Needs a New CEO, Says Munson

      User growth going negative isn't on most analyst radars even if the press is starting to ponder the idea.

      Read More »from Facebook Set to Miss Whisper Estimate: Munson
    • Apple (AAPL) and gold spent a decade making true believers rich only to gut them over the last 6 months. From October 1st of 2012 to the middle of this month, shares of Apple dropped 40%. At the same time, safe haven-seekers long the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) got drilled by 25%.

      Gold and Apple aren't "supposed" to move in lock-step. As Lee Munson, chief investment officer of Portfolio LLC notes in the attached clip, the first thing they teach you in "little trader's school" is that gold and stocks move opposite to one another.

      Assets don't care what you think should happen. Not only did Apple and gold drop in synch, they bottomed together as well. Since the start of last week shares of Apple are up more than 11% and the GLD ETF has tacked on half that amount.

      With gold trading like a lower beta version of Apple, Breakout asked Munson the same thing we did last June: Which would you rather own? Munson's going with Apple again, but only for the very patient.

      Read More »from Apple vs. Gold: Which Bounce Can You Believe In?
    • If you haven't noticed, natural gas has gone from laughing stock to favorite commodity over the past year as the price of our most abundant fossil fuel has more than doubled.

      While many investors look to lighten up and lock in gains at this time of year, Jeff Hirsch, editor-in-chief of Stock Trader's Almanac, says although the list may be short, there are some bullish seasonal trends in play in May.

      "Two things that are really in the middle of a good season are natural gas and crude oil," Hirsch says in the attached video. "They are impacted by the heating season, but also the cooling season and the driving season. So that whole build up period between December and June/July when the usage that drives that bullish season for gas and oil."

      And of the two, he says nat gas looks to be the better bet right now. Not only is new demand coming on line but the price is breaking out to a two-year high. "We also think we had a secular low last April (at $1.96 m/btu) for the nat gas market. (UNG, FCG)," he says of the crash that took prices to generational lows. "It's nice that we have a lot of gas but there's more demand coming in and the supply is being taken up."

      Read More »from Seasonal Uptrend for Nat Gas & Crude Oil Underway: Hirsch

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