Carl Icahn

We suspect this will be the last time billionaire investor Carl Icahn is invited on CNBC. Having sold CNBC darling NFLX, he crushed the two main memes of CNBC's raison d'etre - buy stocks, because where else are you going to put your money - "what's better - making 2% or losing 30% as people did in 2008...right now it's an extremely dangerous time;" and the next leg of this bull market will come from an improving real economy - "the economy is not picking up, it is artificial due to low interest rates." The market has way over-estmated how long this will last, Icahn concludes, "keep your powder dry - why do have to own anything risky? It's just nonsensical."

2/2 If more respected investors had warned about the market in ’07, we might have avoided the crisis in ’08.

— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) June 24, 2015

You just can't make this up... We're gonna need some greater fools!

According to BofA's Jill Hall, "BofAML clients were big net sellers of US stocks in the amount of $4.1bn, following four weeks of net buying. Net sales were the largest since January 2008 and led by institutional clients—after three weeks of net buying, institutional clients’ net sales last week were the largest in our data history."

More and more insiders are warning of a potential systemic event.

As we move toward the second half of 2015, signs of financial turmoil are appearing all over the globe. Slowly but surely, we are starting to see the smart money head for the exits. As one Swedish fund manager put it recently, everyone wants “to avoid being caught on the wrong side of markets once the herd realizes stocks are over-valued“.

I am knowledgeable concerning markets and believe Donald is completely correct to be concerned that we have “a big fat bubble coming up.  We have artificially induced low interest rates.” I personally believe we are sailing in dangerous unchartered waters.  I can only hope we get to shore safely.  Never in the history of the Federal Reserve have interest rates been artificially held down for so long at the extremely low rates existing today.  I applaud Donald for speaking out on this issue – more people should.

Flash Crash? AAPL shares cracked lower on a huge sell order (of over $100 million) then rapidly recovered on de minimus volume... did Carl Icahn start dumping?

FTW (For Those Who Say I Just Don't Get It... Get This!) There seems a shift showing itself in dramatic fashion unseen since the 2008 financial meltdown. Not only are some key players, or institutions beginning to notice some troubling signs; but rather; those very signs that everyone was told 'won’t or shouldn’t happen', not only are, they’re starting to rear their ugly heads in much greater frequency.

"This market has a lot to be concerned about," warns Carl Icahn in an interview with FOX Business Network's Trish Regan, slamming Fed policy, "by keeping interest rates this low you are creating bubbles that you don’t even know about." While mainstream media pundits are instantly feverish over every bullish AAPL word the aging activist has to say (or tweet), it seems that when it comes to facing facts and reality of the broad market, few, if any, are willing to share his thoughts as he concludes, "it’s not just a question of it could be the beginning... It’s not will it happen. It’s when it will happen."

• China’s Record Capital Outflows Spark Financial Stability Fears (FT)
• U.K. Inflation Falls Below Zero for First Time Since 1960 (BBG)
• Islamic State Solidifies Foothold in Libya to Expand Reach (WSJ)
• Judge sentences 11 Afghan police over lynching of woman in Kabul (Reuters)
• The $18 Trillion Global Economic Boost If Everything Went Right (BBG)
• Eurozone Prices Confirmed Flat Year-on-Year in April, Core Inflation Inches Higher (Reuters)
• Greek Finances to Stagger On Longer Than You Think (BBG)
• Athens sees EU deal soon, Greeks' approval of government stance dwindles (Reuters)

If Carl Icahn, whose $6.8 billion in AAPL holdings makes him nearly a 6x bigger holder of the stock than the Swiss National Bank, is correct and AAPL is truly worth $240/share today, or about $1.4 trillion, roughly equivalent to 9% of US GDP, then this is how AAPL would rank if it were a sovereign nation...

Here are the cliff notes of the Icahn letter:

1. Uncle Carl and his two analysts remain convinced they know how to run AAPL better than its CEO and his thousands of employees.
2. Uncle Carl and his two analysts have built up a massive stake in AAPL shares which however they can't get out of in this illiquid market without tipping the market they are selling - a tip which would promptly send the stock plunging - and as a result have come to the only buyer who is big enough to buy all of Icahn's shares without destabilizing the market: the company itself.

With NIRP having turned traditional risk-free assets into guaranteed losers, investors have poured more than $9 billion into junk bond ETFs YTD, and while common sense dictates that buying at the top of an epic HY bubble just ahead of a rate hike cycle and against a backdrop characterized by disappearing liquidity in the secondary market for corporate credit is a fool's errand, most investors feel they have little choice.