A Lesson For The Morning
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2013-01-31 08:32
by Karl Denninger
in Editorial
Ignore this thread
A Lesson For The Morning
 

RIMM is getting pounded for more than 6% this morning, bringing the two-day loss to about 26%.

VMWare got hammered for..... about 25%.

Apple is down.... about 35% from the top... and about 26% in the last month.

There are those who think this is a specific-stock story.

It's not.

It's a general story, but you're not hearing this highlighted on CNBS and similar places in the media.

Why not?

Simple: The Sell Side is how they make money.  They're who buys the ads and pays the bills.  And yet we sit here with the S&P right near 1500, while a 25% drop would cream those who bought back in late -- which is most of the people.

The Fed has encouraged and in fact argued for this sort of rotational bubble.  On purpose.  Just as they did so with the housing bubble, on purpose, and then they tried to claim they didn't know anything about even though a number of people, Paul Krugman among them, actively argued for the intentional creation for the housing bubble in public following the Nasdaq bust.

The crowd never gets out in time.  You will not get out in time.  You will not demand your government stop with the deficit spending and the bipartisan unwillingness to stop deficit spending.  You will instead buy into the bubble TV mantra that "happy days are here again" and dismiss the fall of RIMM and VMware as "isolated incidents."

But they're not.  Both RIMM and VMWare are real companies.  RIMM has zero debt.  It makes real money.  Oh sure, there are those who think this will end and the company will collapse, but thus far they have all been wrong.

Amazon, on the other hand, is trading near $275/share after reporting deteriorating growth.  The stock went up more than $10 on that report -- a report that highlighted slowing growth rates -- and not just a little either.  As I wrote yesterday growth in the shipment of electronics and similar this most-recent quarter was cut in half compared to last year. 

Got that?  Cut in half.

But the stock price has gone up by more than half in the same time.

You buy stocks for accelerating growth rates, not collapsing ones.

This entire market is now sitting on the edge of a cliff.  So is the economy.

Those who have laughed at predictions of market collapse will not sell in time.  You won't either.  You'll be trapped, just like the last time in 2008.  And it will happen for the same reason it did in 2008 -- unrealistic (and knowingly so) claims of "growth" that don't really exist, touted by so-called "analysts" that pile on in both directions, first to suck you in while the sell-side (that's all the Wall Street folks) sell you shares, then again on the downside after the collapse has already happened.

Now let me point something else out.

RIMM, incidentally with the BB10, probably will have the first working browser in a smartphone.  Android, for all of you fanbois who love it, cannot even properly handle entry into a textbox on a web page.  It never has.  It still doesn't, years later.  The manufacturers get away with this because you buy their crap, even knowing it's crap, and you continue to buy it even though the first web browser, NCSA Mosaic, properly handled scrolling a textbox and going back to correct something in it -- an act that Android is utterly incapable of even today.

Apple's browser is only marginally better, incidentally.

Why do we have this crap going on?  Why do you have cars where you can't change a crank position sensor without removing the engine, turning a $25 part into a $2,500 repair?  Why have you bought millions of monitors and other electronic devices with exploding capacitors in them -- manifestly defective parts -- and yet you refuse to force the manufacturers to compensate you (by refusing to ever buy another product of theirs until they do)?  Why is it that you will vote for a politician who promises that which is impossible, and you know it, and then you whine when your jobs wind up in China and gasoline prices double?  Why is Ben Bernanke still chair of The Fed?  Why have you allowed both Democrat and Republican to run more than a $1 trillion deficit for the last four years sequentially?

Why?

Because you are sheep.  You refuse to demand that products you buy actually work.  You refuse to expect basic functionality and repairability.  You refuse to demand the truth and instead you continue to suck up the lies through a straw while you are being raped of your funds and freedom at the same time.

I started writing this column in 2007 because I didn't think it was fair that people get screwed again after the Tech Wreck in 2000.  I gave up doing what I like doing -- fishing, diving, sleeping -- for more than five years to do this. 

And increasingly, I think I made a mistake.

I am questioning whether the audience is a bunch of masochists, in which case this has all been one gigantic waste of time.

This is going to be a rough ride folks.

Fraud is not sustainable as a business model, and continually spending money you don't have with a promise to pay tomorrow with no actual end date is in fact fraud, because it is mathematically certain that you will fail, and when you do you're bankrupt.

Good luck folks.

Discussion below (registration required to post)
 

Main Navigation
Full-Text Search & Archives
Archive Access
Get Adobe Flash player





Blogtalk 3:30 CT Mondays
Items To Look At


Discuss The Capital Markets along with daily technical analysis with our Gold Donor program.

Where We Are, Where We're Heading (2013) - The annual 2013 Ticker

Links and Blogroll
Our policy on reciprocal links: Send us an email with your information and why you think your blog or news site would make a good addition - in most cases reciprocal link requests will be granted.
Seeking Alpha Certified
Legal Disclaimer

The content on this site is provided without any warranty, express or implied. All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and may contain errors or omissions.

NO MATERIAL HERE CONSTITUTES "INVESTMENT ADVICE" NOR IS IT A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO STOCKS, OPTIONS, BONDS OR FUTURES.

The author may have a position in any company or security mentioned herein. Actions you undertake as a consequence of any analysis, opinion or advertisement on this site are your sole responsibility.

Looking for "The Best of Market Ticker"? Check out
Ticker Classics.

Visit the forum to discuss this and other investing-related topics; see the FAQ on the forum for information about Gold Donor status including access to our technical analysis video server.

Market charts, when present, used with permission of TD Ameritrade/ThinkOrSwim Inc. Neither TD Ameritrade or ThinkOrSwim have reviewed, approved or disapproved any content herein.

Market Ticker content may be reproduced or excerpted online provided full attribution is given and the original article source is linked to. Please contact Karl Denninger for reprint permission in other media.

Submissions may be sent "over the transom" to The Editor at any time. To be considered for publication your submission must include full and correct contact information and be related to an economic or political matter of the day. All submissions become the property of The Market Ticker.

Leads on stories of current economic and political interest are always welcome. Our fax tip line is 850-897-9364; please include contact information with your transmission.

 
Comments.......
User: Not logged on
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Showing Page 1 of 5  First12345Last
User Info A Lesson For The Morning in forum [Market-Ticker]
Iou
Posts: 1025
Incept: 2009-03-16
A True American Patriot!
The Twilight Zone
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
I smell something in the air...

----------
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."- Frédéric Bastiat
Rvacha
Posts: 8295
Incept: 2008-10-03
Gold
Cleveland
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
But, but but... IWM has a P/E of 25.4 - what could possibly go wrong? /sarc

----------
"I suggest you panic." - Hugh Hendry
Bagbalm
Posts: 4255
Incept: 2009-03-19
Green
Just North of Detroit
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
To quote my mother-in-law. "You mean those things (mutual funds foisted off on her) can go DOWN?" She was sold on taking that instead of cash for her husband's life insurance policy. She could not define what a stock is, or how it was different than a bond. I suppose they defined her as a sophisticated investor.
Novid
Posts: 92
Incept: 2010-06-25

Philadelphia
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
The Investors are*****ing me off even more today. But I noticed it since the days of KDE when i did a business class for a bit. KDE had no debt and kept the books straight when it was getting hammered for no good damn reason. Amazon and Rimm spoke the truth but yet the bastards going for Amazon even THOUGH they know they are getting hosed by the State Tax racket. This is bull****. Now i know even if RIMM beats expectations first quarter the investors going to **** them over even when the sales say otherwise.
Andrew123
Posts: 175
Incept: 2009-07-05
Green
California
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
IS it fair to ignore Qcom and Citrix? I Don't have anything to say about RIMM (buy the way, buying RImm was a terrific call, but do you remain long), but there were a lot of smart people on the thread when STX and VMW got creamed that said the VMW in particular was a company in deep trouble. I think the Citrx results point to further problems at VMW as they seem to be getting attacked from all sides. I agree that the market is in a fed induced bubble, but I don't thinkj it is fair to point to those three companies and say the decline isn't company specific.
Lenguado
Posts: 1272
Incept: 2010-01-12
Gold A True American Patriot!
Orlando, FL
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Quote:
The crowd never gets out in time. You will not get out in time.

Uhhmmm, I got out about 5 years ago. Never went back in. And not going to...
Quote:
You will not demand your government stop with the deficit spending and the bipartisan unwillingness to stop deficit spending.

I DO demand it. They just don't #$@%ing listen - or care. I'm tired of peeing into the wind. I know that's probably what they want. But since this seems to be what well over 51% of the AmeriKan people want, doesn't seem that anything much will change any time soon.
Quote:
You will instead buy into the bubble TV mantra that "happy days are here again"

I DO NOT buy into the bubble TV BS. I know it is all crap.
That's why I read the Market-Ticker.

----------
I just realized... they aren't saying, "Keynesian Economics"
they're saying "Kenyansian Economics". Grass Huts for everyone!
smiley
Welcome to history’s first Double Dip Depression
Sean
Posts: 1766
Incept: 2009-04-21

Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Len sounds exactly like me!

----------
* I think Ann Barnhardt is more and more right. God help us!
* Progressives / Marxists / Communists are many things, STUPID and IMPATIENT are not two of them.
* A hot civil war is coming.
* And people wonder why I prep!
Ktrosper
Posts: 1500
Incept: 2010-04-06
Silver
ft collins co
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
KD wrote..
...in which case this has all been one gigantic waste of time.
I guess only you can answer that.

If your goal was to actually stop what increasingly appears to be the inevitable brick wall??? Maybe. I see that as one man trying to keep the tide at bay... We're talking forces of nature here. Stuff that brilliant men documented and warned about thousands of years ago.

From where I sit, you've been a smashing success. You opened my eyes and the eyes of many in my family and you're going to end up saving us a lot of pain. That's no small thing. You've changed the way we live and taught us a lot... You've buoyed and even changed our values. Values that'll effect the descisions we make moving forward and that will have a lasting effect for generations, as I pass those values on to my children and they pass them on to theirs.

Waste of time?? Not from my point of view.

KT




----------
The unexamined life is not worth living.-Socrates
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.-Aristotle
Liberty exists now in the spaces government has not yet chosen to occupy.-Doc Zero
I anticipate that 10 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders will blow me this evening.-K.D
Rolldog1
Posts: 8
Incept: 2011-08-01
Silver
Midwest
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
It didn't take long for that bit of optimism that Gen had last week to evaporate....
Perramas
Posts: 54
Incept: 2011-01-24

Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Karl you have made a difference, your time and energy spent on this has not be in vain. I have zero debt, paid of my mortgage early and I have no long term exposure to any paper "assets" thanks to you and this site.

I have a good cache of food, ammo, water, seeds and old fashioned tools that do not require power to operate. I also have 8 acres of land with a spring and a stand of woods that is off the beaten path that I can get too fairly quickly if it comes to that. All thanks to you, this site and other posters here.

----------
Assassination, Attack, Domestic security, Drill, Exercise, Cops, Law enforcement, Authorities, Disater assistance, Disaster management, DNDO, National prepardness, Mitigation, Prevention, Response, Recovery, Dirty bomb, Swat, Threat
Dmj625
Posts: 434
Incept: 2010-03-01
Green
New Orleans, LA
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
"Ktrosper" wrote..
From where I sit, you've been a smashing success. You opened my eyes and the eyes of many in my family and you're going to end up saving us a lot of pain. That's no small thing. You've changed the way we live and taught us a lot... You've buoyed and even changed our values. Values that'll effect the descisions we make moving forward and that will have a lasting effect for generations, as I pass those values on to my children and they pass them on to theirs.

Waste of time?? Not from my point of view.


^^^This^^^

DMJ625

----------
"The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be."
-Lao-tzu
Andrew123
Posts: 175
Incept: 2009-07-05
Green
California
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Karl, you have helped a small number of people who read the ticker (here or crossposted on occasion). If you really want to make a substanital difference, the only way is to run for office. You have reapeatedly said you have no interest in doing so, but you will have a much wider audience if you were a congressman. Running for offce is a very unpleasent prospect (who needs people trying to dig up dirt and attack you on the public airwaves), but it is the one option you haven't chosen, and would probably take less energy then keeping up with the tickers. If your goal is to really help fix the country, that is the way to do it.
Mikek31
Posts: 4350
Incept: 2009-05-04
Green
Chicago
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Karl wrote..
I started writing this column in 2007 because I didn't think it was fair that people get screwed again after the Tech Wreck in 2000. I gave up doing what I like doing -- fishing, diving, sleeping -- for more than five years to do this.

And increasingly, I think I made a mistake.


Well, you can't save 'em all as far as the stock market goes, but we can see you did your best.

Besides, it's times like these that make the blog of utmost importance. More folks are gonna start paying attention.

Don't give up, Karl.

----------
Everyone keeps looking at the system and saying "it's not working, it needs to be redesigned somehow." It's working exactly the way the people who own it intend it to work.-Sutluc
Aethor
Posts: 126
Incept: 2011-11-15
Green
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Karl - your work was not in vain; what you accomplished was to educate a number of people (me among others) and IMO opening other people's eyes must be a good thing in God's books.

As for changing the entire system, or making 51%+ of population see the same thing to the point where they actually change something... I think it's a bit too much to expect. After all, intelligence, ethics, attitude etc are all distributed on a bell curve, and you can only really educate the top 15% or so.
Others will have to go through the slow process of real-life experiences... and there's no way to really speed that up.

Heck, it took me years to truly understand some things. It took me some personal pains in my life, due to my own mistakes, and then reading what you and a few other people on the Net wrote over and over, until it got into my head. And I considered myself smarter than the average... heh.

J0nx
Posts: 3068
Incept: 2008-08-12
Green
The trashcan of the nation
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Quote:
It didn't take long for that bit of optimism that Gen had last week to evaporate....

ROFL. This. First thought in my mind after two tickers with a doom and gloom attitude from Karl makes me think something is afoot.

----------
The fraud and lies are only allowed to continue because the people allow it. Either through apathy or ignorance, they still allow it.
Moneyman
Posts: 13
Incept: 2011-04-12

Houston Texas
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
To answer the question Why?...it is quite simple. The world has become too complex for all but a very small % of the population to understand. In the last century complexity has increased, thanks to specialization, a hundred fold. The processing power of the average human mind has been stagnant at best. So we have 6B people running around with Atari processors trying to run the latest XBOX 360 games. These people vote, they faithfully contribute to their 401k's and purchase shares of AAPL, NFLX, and AMZN. They feed their kids SSRI's, change their oil every 3k miles...did I mention they vote? Everything experts tell them to do, they do, because they have absolutely no way of knowing better, or even differentiating between true experts and fraudsters.
And so while we have all become experts in our own fields....we have all become imbeciles in just about every other respect. I am no better. My expertise happens to be accounting/finance. And yet as I look around my office and my home, there is almost no consumer product, save perhaps tomatoes that I have the ability to produce on my own.
This is the root cause of Why. It will not get better..it very well may get worse. The bottom line is we need to be realistic about the hardware constraints our species faces and adjust our expectations accordingly.
Rdgdawg
Posts: 165
Incept: 2010-04-30

WI... but no brats or cheese...
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
I've learned more on here and TRUST more of what I've read on MT than any other source out there... and there's less TRUTH out there every day!

Don't give up the good fight!!!! I can't thank you enough for your committment and how much you've helped me and the info I pass along to friends and family!!!

----------
I work hard because millions on welfare depend on me!
Jethrodull
Posts: 81
Incept: 2008-02-25

North Texas
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
"if it could save just ONE (fill in the blank), it will have been a success".

Mission accomplished Gen!
J
Snowman
Posts: 1798
Incept: 2009-03-09
Green
avoiding yellow snow
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
I hope Karl isn't entering his underground bunker yet. There is money to be made on the downside too....
more than the upside, due to the sheeplelessness.
Wis/min
Posts: 5362
Incept: 2009-08-14
Gold A True American Patriot!
On the border
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
I have learned much from this site and appreciate Karl's work.

I also fully understand his frustration that so many people are just not getting it.

It's easy to be complacent, it's discouraging to work so hard and see so little change.

All the best Karl.
Keenan
Posts: 30
Incept: 2013-01-11

Western PA
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Karl, your efforts are not in vain. The messages of your MT posts has reached many through word-of-mouth recommendations. Following your on-air radio session with Chris Moore at KDKA in Pittsburgh, several listeners remarked that the hour was the most insight-filled they've heard on that AM show. I believe you underestimate the reach and effect of your message. Sheep do not all awaken simultaneously.
Stevehaney
Posts: 4
Incept: 2012-07-27

Santa Rosa Beach, FL
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
I've got to agree with Andrew about Citrix - they should not be overlooked. I've been integrating Citrix solutions for over 16 years. Their virtualization technology delivers applications to nearly any device (mobile, laptop, desktop) securely and seamlessly, and has for a long time. They've made smart acquisitions in the past, and continue to deliver a great product.

None of my clients want to support the device-of-the-month that their employees want to use. Citrix allows them to give their folks the ability to use whatever device they want to access their applications and data securely.

Virtualization goes beyond "the cloud", and I think a lot of folks don't get that. It allows a separation between operating systems (software) and physical hardware. Any business with an IT infrastructure, whether it is in-house or hosted, benefits from virtualization because it allows them to allocate their hardware investment on demand, rather than dedicating it to a specific application. Lots of applications sit close to idle 80% of the time, so it make sense for them to share hardware resources. In the past, most of my clients had datacenters full of servers sitting at 5% utilization.

Citrix has always gotten the full picture. VMware is trying to catch up with their own VDI, etc. But there is a big gap for them to fill - it might be too little too late.
Weezie
Posts: 6069
Incept: 2008-05-19
Gold A True American Patriot!
Caution: Congress at Work
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Gen, you saved my family (including extended family who cared to listen) over $500K in asset value. We have a house nearly paid off, our savings intact and my own Dad isn't going to have a retirement where he's eating Alpo.

Thank you.

Since the political arena is bought and paid for, the real recourse is economic boycotts. Taking your $$ elsewhere; banking and buying local; encouraging more frugality including buying used and 'do yourself' repairs (including the videos on how to fix the capacitors in TV/monitors, for example).

The only message understood is money and our best weapon is to continue to educate and withhold our consent through economic proxy.

----------
The election is not a way to have a voice in government, but rather an impotent declaration if we prefer ketchup or mustard on our **** sandwich.
Jerolexus
Posts: 56
Incept: 2008-02-26
Green
NC
Report This As A Bad Post Add To Your Ignored User List
Read my signature line...

----------
"It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once."
~ Thomas Paine, from Dissertation on First Principles of Government (July 1795)
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Showing Page 1 of 5  First12345Last