Apple

AT&T holds the key to the trend in Apple's cash cow product

Inside sources are reporting that there's a new drug of choice circulating in the hallways of power--the White House, Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department--and it's a perfectly legal prescription psychotropic: Delusionol (tm). Delusionol works by activating the parts of the brain that replace cognition and reasoning with positive fantasies. For example, a driver on Delusionol might run over a person in a wheelchair, bounce off a fire hydrant and send a baby carriage hurtling into a brick wall, and they would be happily convinced that they were an excellent driver. Now you understand why Delusionol is being gulped in vast quantities in the halls of power: the guys (and yes, it's mostly guys) really want to believe the "economic recovery" they've been hyping, and since it's rationally preposterous, they need a drug to suppress recognition that their policies have only made the financial disease worse and stimulate a delusional belief in the fantasy of "recovery."

The Fed’s promise to use more QE should the economy falter is supporting gold.

The global economic picture remains grim, with euro zone economic sentiment falling more than

expected in April and the US job market recovery showing signs of a slowdown.

Apple earnings and the tech boom and indeed possible tech bubble remains one of the primary

drivers of continuing irrational exuberance and risk appetite.

The poor and deteriorating economic backdrop is gold supportive.

A fundamental overview of the stocks available for drafting during the CNBC Street Signs Stock Draft airing, with my comments & opinions. Yesterday I released the analysis of Apples Q2 earnings & I'm sure it contained content that you didn't read anywhere else.

For those who don't subscribe ask a subscriber the difference between valuation note price (pg 10) & AAPL today. I'll offer a lot of opinion on AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, Facebook & GRPN 2:30 at CNBC Streetsigns

• Fed Holds Rates Steady, But Outlooks Shift (Hilsenrath)
• Has Obama Stacked the Fed? Not Really (Hilsenrath)
• High Court Skeptical of Obama’s Use of Power as Campaign Starts (Bloomberg)
• Europe Seen Adding Growth Terms to Budget Rules as Focus Shifts (Bloomberg)
• China Reaches Out to Its Adversaries Over Rare Earths (WSJ)
• Iran Says It May Halt Nuclear Program Over Sanctions (Bloomberg)
• Europe Shifts Crisis Focus to Growth as Merkel Backs Draghi Call (Bloomberg)
• Merkel Wants Rules for Raw Material Derivative Trade (Reuters)
• Evercore Profit Falls 62% as Investment Banking Expenses Rise (Bloomberg)

All you need to read and more.

A 2.7% gain in the NASDAQ, obviously dramatically aided and abetted by the squeeze-fest in AAPL +9% from last night's close, was the best gain in over four months for the tech-heavy index but still leaves it lagging the Dow (by over 2%) and S&P 500 (by over 1.5%) from the 4/9 highs in Apple. At the other end of the spectrum in the real economy, CAT's less than rosy outlook, saw it suffer its largest drop in 7 months dragging an impressive 37pts out of the Dow's lagging but positive performance on the day (now positive from the 4/9 Apple Top day). Of course the Apple-exuberance which seemed enough for the entire world's risk-asset markets to decide that everything is fixed started the day off gap higher in the US and late-to-the-game retail pushed equities higher out of the date this morning as the rest of risk-assets were generally steady. Europe's close seemed to have only minimal impact as everyone was focused on the FOMC statement and Bernanke's presser. Between the FOMC and the Bernanke conference, Gold, stocks, and the USD knee-jerked and retraced but Treasuries remained worse (higher in yield by 3bps or so). Once Bernanke began his quaking tenor, Gold pushed higher, Treasuries lower, stocks higher and the USD lower as hints of QE back on the table were dribbled in between defensive tacks on biflationary concerns. This QE-specific action was accompanied by low volumes though (as usual) but volatility did compress (a la typical QE trades) with VIX closing below 17% - its lowest in over a month and near its largest divergence from European volatility (V2X). Commodities in general lagged early then recovered as USD sold off on QE chatter from Ben - Silver underperformed on the day but outperformed notably off its lows after testing below $30 for the first time in 3 months. Treasuries pulled back positively off their high yields of the day in the late afternoon ending the week with the short-end (out to 5Y) flat and 10s/30s 2.5bps higher in yield. HYG was a dramatic high-beta outperformer today - now green for the month - even as HY and IG credit lagged the ebullience in stocks (though did improve to two-week highs). ES (the S&P 500 e-mini future) closed above its 50DMA on average volume today with some heavy and larger average trade size into the close ending just above Friday's highs - even after the dismal US data (Durable Goods) and Europe's issues this morning.

Since last night's blockbuster earnings by Apple presented yet another "paradigm shift" in how the company is presented to potential new investors (how many are left one wonders); namely, no longer reliant on incremental US purchases - just to avoid the thorny issue of wireless company subsidization - and one now dependent on Chinese consumer demand for future growth, we thought, in conjunction with William Banzai, to present a graphic simplification of what the Apple business model is all about going forward. Two words: "value added"

For the first time in over two months, Apple's implied volatility is now trading back below its realized volatility as its share price explodes 10% higher and overall implied volatility falls back to a more normalized level of the last six months. It seems, just as in the few months leading up to January's earnings report, that option-hedgers were very actively bidding up protection only to see it crushed on the miraculous realization of exponential growth. Will we repeat the same path in the next three months as implied volatility is once again at 3-month lows relative to realized vol?

Forget Big Macs, the only ubiquitous commodity that counts now in the global purchasing-power-parity pyramid of currency-wars is the iPhone. Deutsche Bank has created a comprehensive set of tables on what costs how much and where around the world so whether it is soft-drinks in Brazil or Germany (over 690% of New York prices), Beer in Japan (192% of US prices), or exercise in Russia (sports shoes are 221% of US prices), it is perhaps evident that the impact of these overseas revenues in nominal USD may indeed be helping juice US corporates as they bow to Bernanke's debasement wisdom. But how much longer will Russians (or the Chinese for that sake) continue to pay around 50% more for their iGadgets than us lowly Americans.

Yesterday we had Apple sandbagging expectations with yet another round of low guidance, now it's Iran's turn, which through its Russian Ambassador just said the country will consider halting nuclear expansion to avert the EU oil ban. Needless to say, just as the Apple forward guidance so this "promise" is utterly worthless. But at least it punk'd the algos for the time being sending Brent and WTI down over $1 in a hurry.

All you need to read.

S&P threatening to downgrade India... UK double dipping... Germany having a failed auction. It is all irrelevant, for the great fruit has spoken and people are buying iGadgets at record levels, which can only mean that once the great credit spree ends, Apple will likely be forced to use its $110 billion cash hoard to start an in house "Acceptance Corporation" vendor financing purchases of its products directly. And while the AAPL earnings beat has become a contrarian bet, now that even Gartman has said he is turning bullish on stocks, here is a summary of what happened and what will happen. In a nutshell, just like Apple was the only thing that mattered yesterday, today it is only the Fed and the subsequent press conference that matter, with the market likely to only take away whatever it wants to take away.

As we said yesterday, traders could have just slept through the entire day, ignored headlines about mad cows, auctions of European bonds maturing in a few weeks, speculation of Europe's alleged falling out favor with austerity which is very much irrelevant as all that matters is what German taxpayers/voters say, and the SEC's latest laughable scapegoating attempts, and just woken to the 4:30 pm announcement of iPhone sales in China. As expected, the entire world is now reacting. Here is Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid with the global response to the world's ongoing fascination with aspirational cell phones.