Back To The Future

When it comes to smart phones I’m a bit of a weirdo. Reason being that I like them small and as unobtrusive as possible. When I got into reading sci-fi novels as a young kid my vision of the future didn’t entail insufferable posers waltzing around with 7 inch screens pinned directly to their forehead. The sheer sight of pubescent teenagers crossing my way hunched over immersed into their phones irks me to no end, and if EMP guns weren’t illegal I’d probably apply for a concealed carry license. Simple pleasures…

So you can imagine my excitement when Apple yesterday announced the new iPhone SE2. It’s basically an iPhone 11 Pro dressed up as an iPhone 8 plus it’s got touch ID. I think I’m in love although I’m probably in the vast minority thinking that a 4.7” display may a bit too large for me. But again – I’m the outlier dinosaur here as I still happily cling to my old iPhone SE.

That said I think it’s a brilliant move by Apple and frankly one that was long overdue. And honestly I don’t think Apple had much of a choice. Given that the global economy is swirling the toilet right now a business model designed around pimping $1000+ smart phones primarily produced in China does not constitute a winning proposition.

Plus after resting on Steve Job’s laurels and lack of true innovation the competition is increasingly breathing down Apple’s neck. I mean Google’s recently announced Pixel 4a is looking pretty attractive at a comparable price point. All of this once again shows that even a virus laden cloud has a silver lining.

Except if you live in Europe that is. While the base model of the SE2 will retail at $399 it’s going for €489 here in Spain and France.  Europeans are idiots when it comes to electronics as they happily pay a premium and that in Euros I may add. Given how cheap air travel will be in the near future I may as well grab a flight and just pick one up state side. As soon as they let us out of quarantine that is.

The big announcement has pushed AAPL way above its expected move and that’s encouraging as it’s retraced 50% of its losses.

However I remain suspicious as things have been pretty wild across the entire tech sector evidenced by a wild gap and pump on the Nasdaq 100. Personally I strike this off to sector rotation after everyone pulled out of finance ahead of earnings.

Meanwhile the S&P has remained far inside this week’s expected move.

At the same time the Russel continues to drop again. And a lack of correlation between the three indices combined with high volatility indicates further trouble ahead.

Short Victims Roll Call

So I put together a little python script today that pulls next week’s earnings candidates and exports them to be dropped into ThinkOrSwim. Very handy indeed as it expedites my symbol fishing expeditions. So let’s take a look:

Boeing has been cut in half over the past two months but it’s still a $140 stock which is looking for a landing strip in double digit land. It’s currently pondering its bailout options and obviously that may produce a temporary pop. But over the long term I’m seeing more red candles here.

All of that volatility of course offers us an edge and both Tony and I have been experimenting with various strategies over the past few weeks. On that end we have been setting up a trading room on RocketChat which we’ll be introducing in a week or two. Very exciting stuff indeed.

Next in line is United Airlines which basically is a spitting image of BA. Similar sentiments here. Its earnings are next week and yesterday’s news of a $5 Billion bailout did not manage to move the needle.

A lot more symbols below for my intrepid subs:

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