02/17/2015 Live Update

[Cobra]

told you.

Board readers: You must learn to understand and recognize Cobra sarcasm.

He is very serious, very dedicated, but the lopsided bull moves generated by central bank money printing make his science somewhat superfluous at times. Hence his eyes roll, and sarcasm comes from his typewriter.

BTFD!

GLTA

actually lots of patterns do not work as text book says. I suspect people who write those text books actually do not trade, or after hundreds of years people's trading psychology has changed so patterns do not work as before.

[Xian]

AAPL open interrest and call vol, put vol...

Xian: I’m sure you’ve already read about the fruit car, oy
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/84906352 ... z3RpXPEcAX

http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-tita ... 1423868072

to bypass the WSJ paywall, click the top story here
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl= ... gws_rd=ssl

Oy, indeed my pasta. Oy indeed.

Wall Street loves a good story, emphasis on "story". Like getting your toilet paper delivered to your backyard via flying robot, or internet ad companies that wanna give you a ride into outer space.

Think piece on on the iCar: http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/02/15/th ... apple-car/


The Velvet Underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOmZimH00oo

[Cobra]

100% mm. not sure, maybe it's range top, so should go down from here.

[fehro]

SPX cyan channel kinda holding.. gap still open..

[Daniel]

TLT holding below its (strongly upslope) 50day MA.

Usually such patterns resolve with a retest of that rising long term smoother. Thereafter, who knows.

TLT 50MA currently 129.25, price ca. 127.25

[soku]

another day /es has no meat, but decent movements in individual names. i played $KNDI $GPRO, and of course $DUST

[Cobra]

members only update at 12:10 pm
http://www.cobrasmarketview.com/2015/02 ... ay-update/

[CaStorm]

Is morning hour hollow red bar still valid?

[fehro]

just some quick lines on 6months..fwiw... GLD possible support is close.. VIX possible bullish falling wedge..

[MrMiyagi]

Internals getting a little stronger, NYMO, TRIN, VIX, NYADV, NYDEC... maybe the "low" was in.

[Al_Dente]

Oy, indeed my pasta. Oy indeed.
Wall Street loves a good story, emphasis on "story". Like getting your toilet paper delivered to your backyard via flying robot, or internet ad companies that wanna give you a ride into outer space.
Think piece on on the iCar: http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/02/15/th ... apple-car/

So, building a car has a huge $ “barrier to entry”, something like $1billion+
Is that a problem for the fruit, who reportedly has +/- $187billion sitting around in cash and cash-equivalents?
Most “experts” think they won’t build, they’ll just load somebody else’s electric build with aapl design/gagets………. so ………..contrary, they’ll probably build….
GOOG already has that “driverless car”

AAPL defies Newton
I really have to give classic-candlestick theory more credit
I posted that premature “pattern” alert last week and linked to the candle-info.
Then the third-gap-up appeared on Thursday and I re-posted the “instructions” for confirmation and stop loss
Those trading APPL saw that the pattern DID NOT CONFIRM. Instead, on Friday AAPL printed a hanging man (bearish), then today, it could not even confirm the hanging, instead blew right through it …. oy…… now the hanging man is still in effect until that one is confirmed (not yet) or supplanted by another pattern.
(In other words: long until CONFIRMED otherwise). I don’t make this stuff up….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUDtFdnn9oQ

[fehro]

SPX… so close to a gap fill.. but not quite… VIX still holding minor bull flag looking.. atm

[Tutti]

Oy, indeed my pasta. Oy indeed.
Wall Street loves a good story, emphasis on "story". Like getting your toilet paper delivered to your backyard via flying robot, or internet ad companies that wanna give you a ride into outer space.
Think piece on on the iCar: http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/02/15/th ... apple-car/

So, building a car has a huge $ “barrier to entry”, something like $1billion+
Is that a problem for the fruit, who reportedly has +/- $187billion sitting around in cash and cash-equivalents?
Most “experts” think they won’t build, they’ll just load somebody else’s electric build with aapl design/gagets………. so ………..contrary, they’ll probably build….
GOOG already has that “driverless car”

Over the weekend, received this in my mailbox. A fairly well thought out proposition on why AAPL buys out TSLA:

Apple will buy Tesla for $75b in 18 months (prediction)
Apple will buy Tesla for $75b in 18 months -- it’s a lock (in my mind).

Let me start out with three important disclaimers:

I have no inside information.
I hold no shares of Tesla or Apple*.
I do own two Teslas and spend $3k per year on Apple products personally (at least).
OK, now that those disclaimers are out of the way, let me break down what I think will happen in the next 12 months based on what we’ve heard so far about Apple’s interest in electric cars.

[ Click to Tweet (can edit before sending): http://ctt.ec/KHTMe ]

For background, there are reports of a massive project at Apple, with hundreds of executives working on an electric minivan. Additionally, an Apple self-driving car has been spotted on the roads.

Elon has been very public in saying that in order to complete the mission at Tesla he needs to get the third generation car out. He has also been very public about creating the sexy Roadster for early adopters ($125k, only ~2k produced), the Model S for the early majority ($60k, project hundreds of thousands will be produced), and the Model 3 for everyone ($35k, projected 1m produced).

Now, historically, Tesla Motors generally announces cars about 24-48 months before they drop (someone correct me if these dates from Wikipedia are wrong).

Roadster Announced: July 2006

Roadster Delivered: Spring 2008 (24 months after being announced)

Model S Announced: June 2008 (24 months after Roadster announcement)

Model S Delivered: June 2012 (48 months after being announced)

Model X Announced: Feb 2012 (48 months after Model S announcement)

Model X Delivery Expected: Q3 2015 (~30 months after being announced)

Model 3 Announcement (guess): Q2 2015 (36 months after Model X announcement)

Model 3 Delivery (guess): 2018 (36 months after being announced)

What this means to me is that Apple would be desperate to buy Tesla between when the Gen 3 is announced but before it is delivered, because once the Model 3 hits the road Tesla’s market cap would make a deal with Apple a merger -- not an acquisition.

Additionally, some things that make Apple the likely buyer of Tesla in the next 18 months:

Giga factory has been announced, so making the batteries for Model 3 at scale will be a lock, as well. Apple uses a lot of batteries.
Apple’s Tim Cook very much wants to pursue the kind of “our-shoring” (I made that word up), that Elon has mastered. In fact, Apple wants to build an all-renewable energy production facility in Mesa, AZ (anyone know the latest on that?), and they are building the Mac Pro (the sexy black mini-cylinder) at their Texas facility.
Tim Cook is obsessed with renewable energy, so much so that he told climate deniers to not hold Apple stock, and he is investing $850m to build a giant solar farm to power Apple’s new HQ.
Tesla is going to take the 5-inch thick battery from the Model S and plant it on people’s garage walls, according to reports, so that they have enough battery power to last a week. This means they could charge their batteries by solar (Solarcity! Elon is chairman!) for rainy days, or they would charge their battery at night when there is cheap power and take load off the grid (making electricity even cheaper).
The Model S has a giant iPad in the center console -- essentially -- but it doesn’t have many Apps (and no App ecosystem). It would be trivial for Apple to power the center console with a retina display, and exceptionally easy for developers to create Tesla dashboard-aware Apps (think: Pandora, Waze, Apple Maps, iTunes, Beats, Spotify, etc).
You could charge $50 to $150 per App for the dashboard of a car -- people are used to paying a bucketload to upgrade their car hardware.
At this rate, Apple could buy Tesla at 3x its market cap (the cost I believe they would need to hit), with a year of profits from their phone business.
Apple stores would look really F#@$%ing sexy with a car in the middle of them, no?
Self-driving cars will be in the market in 7-10 years in a major way (you’ll test one in the next three years, of course), which means that with Apple and Tesla’s combined progress in this market, they could have the entire line refreshed and ready for a makeover for the coming driverless revolution.
No other car company can catch up with Tesla -- it’s already game over.
Google is another likely buyer, but Google can’t compete with Apple’s war chest.
No one else in the world could actually make a run at Tesla, because they either don’t have the cash and, most importantly, they don’t have the ability to give assurances to Elon that they won’t f@#$ it up. Apple’s design team, software, and global distribution would actually LEVEL Tesla up.
Google’s design and global distribution (for products) just sucks, and they are all over the place. I can’t see Google buying Tesla and making it that much better. Sure, they have some data and some technology, but it feels like that isn’t as important for Tesla right now.
When cars become driverless you will have every passenger sitting there with nothing to do in front of a piece of glass that is massively larger than any screen Apple currently makes -- and for hundreds of hours per year. Can you imagine the number of Apps that will be downloaded when we’re all sitting in our cars, with no need to drive?!?! App store revenue gone wild!
Apple would need at least seven years to get a car on the road: three or four years to design it, followed by three to five years of building factories capable of any sort of modest capacity.
Elon Musk as the CEO of Apple? Wow. Doubt he would want to do it, but I could see him being the Chairman -- and that would be kind of special.
Reports are 100+ Apple former employees are working for Tesla.
Tesla's Model S is considered the greatest car ever made -- something Apple can relate to (having had Walt Mossberg anoint them the greatest phone, tablet, and laptop ever made).
Perhaps we will hear a spring surprise: Apple is a partner in Tesla's Giga factory?
Bottom line: $75b combined with Apple’s reputation, an announced Model 3 and 100,000 pre-orders for it, and we’ll see Tesla be the big acquisition we’ve all been waiting for Apple to make.

What do you think? Should Tesla Motors sell?

best @jason

[fehro]

gap filled.. VIX still green

[Cobra]

vol surge, might be a pullback here firs then we'll see. probably another leg up.

[Al_Dente]

WEEKLY on the all-nasdaq $COMPQ (black) we are within 200 points of the 2000 all-time-high.

[K447]

...
So, building a car has a huge $ “barrier to entry”, something like $1billion+
Is that a problem for the fruit, who reportedly has +/- $187billion sitting around in cash and cash-equivalents?
Most “experts” think they won’t build, they’ll just load somebody else’s electric build with aapl design/gadgets………. so ………..contrary, they’ll probably build….
...

Apple makes products when they feel they can make a long term and impressive difference and a strong profit margin. Or to extend and defend the existing central products and services.

It is unclear where the profit margin would come from, given the narrow or negative profitability of current automobile industry, including Tesla.

A deep rethink of what an automobile interior is FOR and how it should WORK, that is something worth pursuing. I find the current state of automobile interiors and especially 'dashboards' to be as forward thinking as a typewriter is today. Non-modular with very locked in technology and slow rates of evolution.

[Al_Dente]

Awesome
Thanks Toot and K447
Me: I like those no-frills, ultra-low-tech cars in India that cost US $2,000 and don’t even have heat/air.
Even Henry Ford, the uber capitalist, knew that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish his assembly line/massive sales goals unless he doubled employee salaries (he did) and gave them house credit (he did).

[brucekeller]

Feels like we could start breaking down here if AAPL makes new lows.

[Trades with cats]

Elon Musk exists as a result of green government loans and Fed Reserve rate policy. His car sells well in Santa Monica and Portland to mostly (personal observation, I could be wrong) to people with grey hair. It is really fast and has a very nice interior. If the $35,000 car can look like it cost $100,000 on the inside and also be very fast it could sell, but we are talking soccer mom's here, not mid life crisis people who don't want a Porsche. Carl Icon would have a fit if Apple made a bid at anywhere close to current market cap.