Apple

Here come the facts!!! Warning, if you get your feelings hurt over hearing the truth, simply move on. You may have a couple of quarters lefft.

Three months ago when we looked at the latest quarterly hedge fund position tracker from GS, we were not surprised to learn that a record 226 hedge funds were long AAPL stock. And as the chart below proves, a major driver of the increasing price of Apple stock is that increasingly more hedge funds continue to simply pile into the name, which in times of underperformance, such as now with just 11% of hedge funds outperforming the S&P as reported yesterday, is a short-cut means to generating modestly low-risk, high beta due to the collusive nature of all HFs rushing into the safety of one name all at the same time, that at least has some (arguably tenuous if indeed the leaked iPhone 5 photos are of the final thing) fundamentals propping the stock price. Sure enough, in the latest update, the hedge fund hotel California just got bigger once again for the 6th consecutive time, and as of June 30 a record 230 hedge funds were long the stock. We can only imagine how many more peripheral underperforming funds have joined the biggest hedge fund crowd ever since June 30 and have scrambled into the one stock that provides even a modest reprieve from the certainty of career-ending redemption requests come as soon as the September 30 redemption deadline, which is less than one short month away.

Russia continues to accumulate gold in its large foreign exchange reserves. The reserves include monetary gold, special drawing rights, reserve position at the IMF and foreign exchange. Russia’s central bank increased its gold holdings to 30.1 million troy ounces as of August  1st, from 29.5 million troy ounces a month earlier, according to a statement published on its website today. The gold reserves were valued at $48.7 billion at the end of last month, Bank of Russia said in a statement. Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves rose to $510.0 billion in the week to August 10 from $507.4 billion a week earlier, central bank data showed last Thursday.  Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves were $498.6 billion at the end of 2011. This means that Russia now nearly has some 10% of its foreign exchange reserves in gold bullion. 

• German central bank warns country’s financial health not a given (WaPo)
• Secret Libor Committee Clings to Anonymity After Rigging Scandal (Bloomberg)
• Peru Declares State of Emergency to Quell Violent Mining Protests (Dow Jones)
• Euro-Area Economic Adjustment Only Half Complete, Moody’s Says (Bloomberg)
• Wall Street Leaderless in Rules Fight as Dimon Diminished (Bloomberg)
• China Swaps Drop From Three-Month High as PBOC Adds Record Cash (Bloomberg)
• China invest $1 billion in U.S. Cheniere's LNG plant, Blackstone to act as intermediary buffer (FT, Reuters)
• Romney Offers Lukewarm Support for Fed Audit - Hilsenrath (WSJ)
• U.K. Unexpectedly Posts Deficit as Corporation Taxes Plunge (Bloomberg)
• Obama issues military threat to Syria (FT)
• Merkel Allies Signal Concessions on Greece Before Samaras Visit (Bloomberg)
• Chinese banks warned of foreign exchange risks (China Daily)

The data suggests that relative to other tech companies AAPL is significantly overvalued. And going forward there is no guarantee that AAPL can justify today’s value by keeping up its dominance of the sector. Tech is an extremely fickle and fast-changing sector where one year’s turkey can be next year’s prize pig. And AAPL’s product lineup is still dominated by products developed under the charge of Steve Jobs — it will take a while longer to fully assess whether or not AAPL can succeed at the same magnitude over the entire product cycle from conception to sales without his leadership.

UPDATE: AAPL cracked the demonic $666 level after-hours

For a moment this morning some were even thinking this would be the day, this could be the one where volumes come back, ranges expand, and some level of risk sensitivity returns; but alas, despite all the AAPL pumping and Silver surging, Equities ended the day unch on weak volumes (actually cash equities ended very small down for the 16th of the last 17 Monday red closes). The S&P 500 e-mini future (ES) intraday range was a remarkably low 8.5pts, volume at its new post-Knight normal (half-normal), average trade-size lower than average, and risk-assets in general were highly correlated during the day-session as Treasuries also closed unchanged, USD down very modestly and Oil unch. Financials and Tech & Healthcare and Utilities were the only sectors in the green on the day (in an awkward risk on and off way). Copper dumped as Silver surged 2.6% on the day to two-month highs. AAPL also surged 2.6% (up 7% in the last 6 days - a level that has repeatedly been followed by pullbacks this year) as everyone's new favorite IPO (MANU) lost 2.6% (even as FB gained almost 5% closing just below $20). VIX gained 0.6 vols ending above 14% (but drifted lower from the open). While the markets main seem zombie-like, there were some intraday moves in FX and Treasury markets - but these were dominant during Europe's open and faded into the US day-session.

With Apple overtaking Microsoft's 'peak-market-cap' and becoming the most 'valuable' company ever traded, we thought a reflection on what humans (as opposed to machines programmed by humans) did the last time a world-changing technology company went ubiquitous.

One day - - maybe in a month, a year, a few years - God knows - - - Apple is going to make the first in a series of stumbles. I cannot conjure what kind of epic screw-up Apple would have to make in order to surrender its firm grasp over Earth, but there is no such thing as a company that thrives and dominates until the end of time.

Buy everything I say without limit. Leverage each purchase to the maximum allowed under the law. The markets will only go up and not down and 100,000 is the next stop for the S&P. It is to be Dow without Jones, assets without liabilities and wealth without poverty. The Middle Class has been evacuated and everyone is wealthy beyond belief. It is just there, of course, that the truth lies in this merry old land, “beyond belief.”

"I like fantasy---it wakes up the brain cells.”

- Dr. Seuss

• Caterpillar warns on global uncertainty (FT)
• Only 3 years behind the curve as usual: Moody’s warns on California city defaults (FT)
• Monti Says ‘Tragedy’ If Euro Became a Factor of Disruption (Bloomberg) - the same Monti whose disruptive comments recently enraged Germany?
• China Home Prices Climb in More Cities Prompting Policy Concerns (Bloomberg)
• China's Big Four boost new bank loans in Aug first half (Reuters)
• EU Leaders Plan Shuttle Talks to Bolster Greece (Bloomberg)
• US rule set to slash cars’ fuel use (FT)
• Spain Seeks Commitment From Central Bank on Bond Buys (WSJ)... and preferably completely unconditional
• Finnish Euro Doubts Hide Business Plea to Commit to Currency (Bloomberg)

Update: in the 20 or so minutes since uploading this article, AAPL added another OpenTable in market cap. It has in the course of a day added the same market cap as Linked In and just shy of Sony.

Moments ago Apple, long since the largest company in the world by market cap, just crossed $600 billion in capitalization, needless to say a record high, after adding the equivalent of 2.4 RIMMs in market cap in a few short hours. As of this moment, the company that makes a phone, a tablet, various computers (all of which now have an upgrade lifecycle inside of 1 year and ever shorter), has a product "ecosystem", retail stores and may be launching a cable box, is larger than the entire semiconductor sector, larger than the entire retail index, and at this rate of parabolic blow off top growth, will be larger than both combined in about 5-6 months. We can only hope that the company will soon use its $110+ billion cash hoard to launch a captive bank to finance the purchase of its products because unless consumers' disposable incomes are growing at the same rate (with penetration already quite high), and assuming of course it is still cool to have an AAPL product in a few years (just as it was the peak of coolness to have a Palm Tungsten a decade ago... or a RIM phone 5 years ago), the company that is now owned by about 250 hedge funds will certainly have growing pains in the future.

The reason the market is up today? Jefferies' Peter Misek hikes his price target on Apple from $800 tio $900 (the same AAPL which is now supposed to grow almost exclusively in China, and where as Apple Insider just reported "China's second-largest carrier may end contract sales of Apple's iPhone"). Yes, middle market, $100-$200MM high yield bond issuer Jefferies has an equity research group. And yes, after working at JPmorgan, Scotia, Orion, Alpcap, and Canaccord in the past decade, Misek finally has found a place he can call home (for more than 2 years), or at least until the next bonus renegotiation-cum-upgrade option time. And yes, Jefferies actually is moving the volumeless market for the first and only time ever courtesy of 1.000 implied correlation between the NASDAPPLEURUSD. Which is great. Maybe Misek will be right here.,, Unlike his calls on DragonWave for example, where he was buying all the way from $7 until $2, in the interim moving his Price Target from $9.00 to $3.50 to $10.00 to $3.00. Peter likes even numbers. He keeps it simple, except for his $699 PT on AAPL back in March- why $699? "It's one iPad." Sometimes he likes it complicated.

• 'Pussy Riot' band members found guilty (Al Jazeera)
• Merkel Says Germany Backs Draghi’s ECB Aid Conditionality (Bloomberg)
• Now, the reverse psychology: Hilsenrath: Fed 'Hawks' Weigh In Against More Action (WSJ)
• London Firings Seen Surging As Finance Firms Add NY Jobs (Bloomberg)
• Facebook Second-Worst IPO Performer After Share Lock-Up (Bloomberg)
• Kocherlakota Says FOMC Goes Too Far With 2014 Rate Pledge (Bloomberg)
• China Said to Order Action by Banks as Developer Loans Sour (Bloomberg)
• Australian Treasury Dismisses AUD Intervention Calls (Dow Jones)
• Brevan Howard Loses Third Founder As Rokos Said To Leave (Bloomberg)
• Japan eyes end to decades long deflation (Reuters)... for 30 years now
• Ex-Morgan Stanley Executive Gets Nine Months in China Case (Bloomberg)

• JPMorgan provided rescue financing to Knight (WSJ)
• HSBC hands U.S. more staff names in tax evasion probe (Reuters), HSBC, Credit Suisse Sacrifice Employees to U.S., Lawyers Say (BBG)
• Hong Kong shares slide to two-week closing low, China weak (Reuters)
• Israel Would Strike Iran to Gain a Delay, Oren Says (Businessweek)
• Britain 'threatened to storm Ecuador's London embassy' to arrest Julian Assange (AP)
• You have now entered the collateral-free zone: Spain Said to Speed EU Bank Bailout on Collateral Limits (BBG)
• China Can Meet Growth Target on Positive Signs, Wen Says (BBG)
• Risk Builds as Junk Bonds Boom (NYT)
• Berlin maintains firm line on Greece (FT)
• Brazil unveils $66bn stimulus plan (FT)

The European morning session has been fairly quiet, with European equities opening lower following over night reports from China that the People's Bank of China might buy back government debt in the secondary market making the much speculated reserve ratio requirement cut it less likely. With several market closures across the Euro-area thanks to the Assumption of Mary holiday, volumes have been particularly light, and with a distinct lack of European data, market focus was on the release of the Bank of England's minutes for the August rate decision. As expected, the MPC voted unanimously to keep the APF unchanged at GBP 375bln and the benchmark rate unchanged at 0.50%, though some MPC members noted there was a good case for further expansion of QE. The better than expected UK jobs report also helped strength GBP.