Apple

As the following chart shows, with $203 billion in investible dry powder which is probably the best way of calling AAPL's cash the Cupertino-based company is more than $30 billion larger than what is generally accepted to be the largest hedge fund in the world, Ray Dalio's Bridgewater, which however "only" managed some $171 billion as of May 2015.

We’ve spent the past few days in this space noting the recent thinning of the stock market advance. That is, despite the major averages continuing to hover near their 52-week highs, the internals are becoming uglier by the day. The main takeaway from this trend is that, should the relatively few areas of the market that are keeping it afloat begin to weaken, there will be precious little support left to prevent a significant correction. Indeed, we are beginning to see signs of deterioration now even among the stronger areas of the market.

A slow week devoid of virtually any macro news - last night the biggest weekly geopolitical event concluded as expected, when Greece voted to pass the bailout bill which "the government does not believe in" just so the ECB's ELA support for Greek depositors can continue - is slowly coming to a close, as is the busiest week of the second quarter earnings season which so far has been largely disappointing despite aggressive consensus estimate cuts, especially for some of the marquee names, and unlike Q1 when a quarterly drop in EPS was avoided in the last minute, this time we won't be so lucky, and the only question is on what side of -3.5% Y/Y change in EPS will the quarter end.

There has now been an unprecedented 31 consecutive months of CAT retail sales declines. This compares to "only" 19 during the near systemic collapse in 2008.  In other words, if global demand for heavy industrial machinery, as opposed to unemployed millennials' demands for $0.99 Apple apps, is any indication of the true underlying economy, forget recession: the world is now in a second great depression which is getting worse by the month.

All eyes may be on Greece right now, but in reality, the economic malaise is widespread across the continent.  It’s clear that Greece is not the problem. It’s a symptom of the problem. The real problem is that every one of these nations has violated the universal law of prosperity: produce more than you consume. This is the way it works in nature, and for individuals.

We always keep a weather eye on the state of retail investing in the U.S.  There is, of course, the old saw that this batch of buyers doesn’t get involved until the top; therefore, it makes sense to see if they are getting too “Bulled up”. Then there is the fact that retail “Cult” stocks can hold premium valuations far longer than those without such sponsorship.

Apple is expected to be the largest contributor to earnings growth for the Information Technology sector for Q2 2015. The blended earnings growth rate (combines actual results for companies that have reported and estimated results for companies yet to report) for the Information Technology sector is 0.2%. Exclude Apple, and the sector would report a year-over-year decline in earnings of 6.0%.

• Stocks sour as Apple results leave bitter aftertaste (Reuters)
• Awkward Alliance Running Germany Exposed by Greek Crisis (BBG)
• Apple Faces Old Question of What’s Next After Record Profit (BBG)
• Lawmakers, White House Explore Tax Revamp for U.S. Firms Overseas (WSJ)
• Digital Misfits Link JPMorgan Hack to Pump-and-Dump Fraud (BBG)
• More Debt Traders at Risk as European Banks Report Results (BBG)
• Iran rejects sanctions extension beyond 10 years (Reuters)

While this week has been, and continues to be, devoid of macro updates, yesterday's flurry of mostly disappointing earnings releases both before and after the open, including some of the biggest DJIA companies as well as the current and previously biggest and most important companies in the world, AAPL and MSFT, both of which came crashing down following earnings and forecasts that were well short of market expectations, came as a jolt to a market that was artificially priced by central bank liquidity and HFT momo algos beyond perfection. Add to that yesterday's downward revision to historical industrial production which confirmed the US economy is a step away from recession, as well as last night's Crude API inventory build which is once again pressuring WTI lower and on the verge of a 49 handle, and perhaps the biggest question is why are futures not much lower.

The company which was carrying the fate of not only the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 on its shoulders had taken the stairs up, and just took the elevator down.

You don’t hear it much, but the S&P 500 has been a bit of a “One trick pony” in 2015. No, it isn’t the 4% weighting in Apple that makes it such; it is the combination of a 15% weighting in Health Care AND that sector’s 12.9% return year to date.  When you compare the S&P 500’s price return year to date of 3.37%, you can see that the Health Care sector’s contribution is essentially just over half the market’s price return for 2015 (12.9 times 15% is 1.90 of that 3.37). Layer on the fact that 5 of the 10 industry sectors in the S&P 500 are still down on the year: Materials (-2.7%), Industrials (-2.9%), Telecomm (-0.7%), Utilities (-8.6%) and Energy (-9.7%). 

This charmed circle includes Google, Amazon, Baidu, Facebook, Saleforce.com, Netflix, Pandora, Tesla, LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Splunk, Workday, Ylep, Priceline, QLIK Technologies and Yandex. Taken altogether, their market cap clocked in at $1.3 trillion on Friday. That compares to just $21 billion of LTM net income for the entire index combined. The talking heads, of course, would urge not to be troubled. After all, what’s a 61X trailing PE among today’s leading tech growth companies?

If pouring billions of dollars into outrageous "look at me" buildings isn't tempting the gods, what is it?