I am working a very, very big research piece and story that will be released in a few days. It will be of Lehman Brother's proportions. Those of you who have followed me since 2007 know that I mean it when I say it (I called Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns out months before the fact). Due to the complexity of this undertaking and the time constraints to get it out before the statute of limitations runs its course, posting will be sparse for a day or two.

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I will leave this for my readers and subscribers to chew on though. The Chinese have challenged international art auction leaders Christies and Sotheby's in an attempt to take advantage of the boom in faux wealth emanating from the Chinese region. Of course, this is happening as reality catches up with China. As excerpted from the subscriber only report  Sotheby's Intelligence Note (click here to subscribe):

ArtTactic

“Confidence in the Chinese contemporary art market looks increasingly fragile as the ArtTactic Chinese Art Market Confidence Indicator drops 35% from May 2012. The overall Confidence Indicator is now standing at 49, down from 76.

This is the first time the Confidence Indicator has fallen into negative territory since the launch in February 2009. A reading of 49 (Indicator level below 50), means that the current sentiment in the Chinese contemporary art market is now split evenly between experts that remain positive about the market and those that feel increasingly pessimistic about the current market situation.”

ArtTrak Tribal Art

“ArtTactic released a new report on the Chinese art market that contains signs of a significant slowdown in auction sales. China’s four highest-selling auction houses have experienced a 43 percent drop since the same time in 2011

Auction results from 2011 confirmed the Chinese art market as the largest in the world, yet results from spring 2012 sales exhibit signs of a slowing market. The total auction sales (all categories) this spring from the Big Four (Sotheby’s Hong Kong, Christie’s Hong Kong, China Guardian, and Poly Auction) have dropped 32 percent from USD2.2 billion in autumn 2011 to USD1.5 billion this spring. The overall result is 43 percent lower than the peak of the Chinese art market in spring 2011”

The question du jour, "Can the Chinese leverage nationalistic pride to an extent that they can dent the auction powerhouses?" Or better yet, will they get a chance to do it before we continue the 2009 correction (yes, it ain't over)?
Now, many may wonder what this has to do with RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland)? Read BoomBustBlog for the rest of the week to find out.

The updated valuation numbers for Apple are available for all paying subscribers, accessible at the bottom of this article. The question Du Jour is, "Has Apple fallen enough to truly qualify as a value play or is its future still murky and dismal enough to warrant further downward price action. Those who have not followed my Apple analysis should witness our short call research here.

Apple Value Drivers

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Subscribers, reference the updated Apple Valuation numbers and forensic snapshot of the company as of 3/6/2013. Click here to subscribe. The professional version of the document has full DCF and comparable calculations for the pessimistic scenario so more advanced users can determine where we are coming from.

•  Apple 1Q2013 update - Pro & Institutional
  
•  Apple 1Q2013 update - Retail

Related reading:

• Deconstructing The Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever,
• Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever Pt 2

applecutsabreandriod3d

Two and a half years ago I declared in my mobile computing wars series that Google would commoditize the mobile computing space. Four months ago, I reiterated that assertion in Smartphone Hardware Manufacturers Are Dead and did so yet again the following month in Computer Hardware Vendors Are Dead, Part Deux! These premonitions cover not only the obvious also rans and marginal companies who's management complained about losing the forest due to tree bark obstruction, but the very darlings of the industry as well. This includes the "used to be" market darling Apple (What Sell Side Wall Street Doesn't Understand About Apple - It's Not The Leader Of The Post PC World!!!) and even the current reigning champion, Samsung. That's right, I said it! Samsung! Hey, I'll say it again just to drive the point home, Samsung! How and why is that, you ask? Well, the same Google Android generated, creative destruction pathogen that brings us such great technology at such a rapid pace at such quickly diminishing prices that has wiped out those companies that I have warned of so extravagantly doesn't just disappear when your current market darling get's knocked off its perch. Let's recap & excerpt the link above so we can clearly isolate the common thread...

So, you ask, "How is it that hardware is dead?" Well....

1. 1. The open source OS paradigm calls for rapidly improving hardware specs at ever lower prices. I have pointed to evidence of this above, as these Asian OEMs produce ever better product at ever lower prices - just like the old school PC industry. This drives Google's info-centric business model which is why Google pushes free Android.
   2. After years of outsourcing manufacturing tech and IP integration to low cost labor Asian countries, those countries have found a way to produce trinkets of their own. Of limited quality and value so you say? Well, remember the iPhone is a Chinese phone, through and through -at least Chinese built. So now you argue, it's American designed, just Chinese made! Please peruse the Oppo Finder 5, a phone that's drastically superior to the iPhone 5 in practically every single way, retailing for $100 less than the cheapest iPhone 5 made. Low cost, low margin products combined with Google's free OS will drive the price of hardware down to near zero, if not negative. Google even has its own hardware arm now (Motorola) to facilitate this downward march in margins and prices. Suppose Google decides to create best of breed Nexus devices and give them away just below cost? Imagine the best smartphone available in the world, unlocked, without a contract, for the cost of a single monthly wireless phone payment??? Google's Nexus program is acting as a training ground to teach Google's Motorola division to build best of breed! Google's biggest and most successful partner - Samsung, is an Asian company. Samsung Electronics of South Korea reported today that its quarterly profit  jumped 76%, as its Galaxy smartphones beat rival Apple's iPhone in each quarter of 2012. What many seem to have missed is that EBITDA, Operating and Gross margins all slipped QonQ though. A sign of things to come??? Remember, Google benefits most when the barriers to access information are least. Reference "Cost Shifting Your Way To Prominence Using The Network Effect, Or Google Wins - Apple, RIM & Microsoft Have ALREADY LOST!" as well as my videos below...

rotten blackberries

Research in Motion in early 2010: Many More Black Eyes for the Blackberry? A Complete Forensic Analysis of Research in Motion

Rotten plus GreenApple

Apple from 2010 till the ultimate short call in October just past: Deconstructing The Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever Made - Share Price, Market Share, Strategy and All

andriod-vs-apple

I also laid clear the path to Google's prominence as far back as 2010, when there was not a peep from the sell side, see Google's Q4, 2012: This Looks To Be The Leader Of The New Distributed Information Paradigm .

Now, Samsung seems to be the most innovative of the handset vendors to date, but if I'm right, they will end up having to innovate in a commodity space just like the traditional PC manufacturers (Dell, HP, etc.) have to do now. Why?  Because of point number Three...

The new PC is not even a PC anymore, its a multi-tiered, multi-function, distributed cluster of interactive, location aware, multimedia applications sharing your social activities and data through a network of servers - in short, it's the cloud!

For right now, GOOGLE IS THE CLOUD! See my video descriptions of Google's business models above.

What's the purpose of going through said lengthy exercise? 

My regular readers should know an "I told 'ya so" is coming, in the form of an analysis of Samsung's latest quarter results. I was simply going to link to this Business Insider article by Jay Yarrow, but to be honest (and with all due respect, I think these guys work hard) the assumptions and conclusions drawn in it are erroneous and faulty. Thus let's recreate the argument from scratch the BoomBustBlog way.
The article starts off well, by stating that Samsung will fall the way Apple has through margin compression, but the accuracy ends there. The analyst quoted assumes Apple's problems stemmed from the market for high end handsets being saturated, thus the demand bulge moving downstream. This was the justification given for the relatively weak uptake and acceptance of the iPhone 5. This actually the OPPOSITE of the truth. The demand for high end handsets has actually never been higher, which is why so many OEMs are pushing out flagship after flagship. Samsung's best selling device, by far, is its GS3 device (not withstanding the true flagship is the Note 2, but that is more of a specialty device, whose uptake is actually increasing as well). The author of the article and the analyst from which he quotes have succumbed to the Apple RDF (Reality Distortion Field) again.

Apple's iPhone 5 failed in resuming rapid adoption not because high end devices are nearing saturation, but because it's not a high end device yet tried to compete with said devices!!! It may be marketed as a high end device, but it can do relatively little that the Android high end devices can, ex. NFC, Full HD screen, >430 ppi screen density, 5 inch screen, quad core processing (yes, this makes a difference, the new androids smoke the iPhone 5), LTE high speed connectivity, etc. That's a pretty long list off of the top of my head. I saw this feature disparity coming in 2010 as Apple relied more on marketing and less on tech to sell its technology products more as life style fads instead of telecomm/computing/media consumption devices. Reference BoomBustBlog paid research  Deconstructing The Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever Made - Share Price, Market Share, Strategy and All. The result of Apple continuing along these lines is simply more of the same. Reference Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever Pt 2. So what will be the cause of Samsung's margin compression if they are doing "high end" it right? See the two videos above. Samsung will be forced to put more tech in each device at ever lowering price points because that is the business model of the Open Sourced OS that they have succeeded in using - Android. It's the cost of admission into this high growth club. Now, Samsung has two big advantages that Apple doesn't and one advantage that Apple did. To wit:

1. Samsung makes many of its own critical parts (screens, processors, memory chips). Apple actually has to buy these from its Android competitors (Samsung, Sony, LG), thus exposing it further to margin compression.
2. Samsung has a much more diversified product mix. Apple was overexposed, big time. It garnered 72% of its operating profit from one single, product that had more than half the mobile tech space gunning for it. What do you think was going to happen?
3. Apple, more so than Samsung, has enough brand cache to take the onus off of the underlying tech and move it to the brand, per se. People are buying (or were buying) iPhones, not iOS products. People are now starting to recognize the Samsung & Galaxy brand, giving Samsung some leverage over Android.

Expect an Android fork, or the Tizen OS to play a greater role in Samsung's love/hate relationship with Google.

Despite these advantages, as Google pushes hardware and data access prices to near zero, margins in these spaces will collapse along with it. You can't stop this collapse without slowing the progression in the tech space (for that's what the consumer has been trained to expect) or successfully cost shifting - as Google has.

You know, it's amazing how far an awareness of cognitive biases and a mastery of second grade math can get you on Wall Street. It can actually bring you tomorrows news yesterday!

Following up on Deconstructing The Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever, I am offering subscribers an updated valuation of Apple now that it has fallen to EXACTLY where I warned subscribers in October (the week of its all-time high of about $707 it would fall) to. After playing with the iPhone 5 for about a week, I told subscribers to expect the stock to bounce up against the pessimistic band of our valuation analysis. Apple last traded at $420, this is how I put it 5 months ago...

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This report is still available for download to paying subscribers:

•  Apple 4Q2012 update professional & insitutional
  
•  Apple 4Q2012 update - retail

With this report and Apple's subsequent ~40% or so drop, we have profited from Apple on both the long and short sides (After My Contrarian Calling Apple's 3rd Miss Accurately, I Release My Apple Research Track Record For 2 1/2 Years)

Now it's time to discuss where the stock will go from here. Valuation and specifics are the purview of paying subscribers only. All subscribers may email me for my valuation numbers (a quick summary only) and professional/institutional subscribers may contact me for a 5 minute discussion on this topic. I will have an updated valuation report out with 48 hours, likely by tomorrow midday. In the meantime I'll share a smattering of metrics, facts and trends that the sell side is still refusing to face. Let's dance, shall we?

Apple Is In Trouble – Plain & Simple!

Apple has successfully transformed itself from a portable and desktop computer company to a mobile device company, and managed to do so right at the crux of the mobile computing boom. As such, it has benefited mightily, briefly becoming the largest and most respected company in the world. Alas, what goes up must eventually come down. The largess revenues and margins gleaned by Apple brought massive competition, and in the case of Google’s Android, business models specialized in gutting the fat margins which caused Apple to prosper. As a result, margin compression ensued, but very few actually saw signs of it until it was too late (reference Deconstructing The Most Accurate Apple Analysis Ever).

Take note of the chart below which show Apple’s expenses at the corporate level spike.

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The spiking of expenses is corroborated by nearly all fundamental profitability metrics. Before delving into these metrics, let’s review how they margin compression is actually being leveraged. You see, Apple’s margin problem is not emanating from just aggressive competition with smart business models, ubiquitous cloud services (Google) and low cost means of production (Samsung). Apple is now paying the piper for its shift into mobile by having its pipeline effectively saturated with mobile products, thus nullifying the margin expansion that the move into mobile products have brought on. Mobile products had higher margins than their desktop/laptop counterparts. The chart below shows Apple as a nearly completely mobile products company.

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Now, one may say, “but even if they have turned completely into a mobile products company, margins should stabilize, not compress!”. How true, young grasshopper, except for the fact that as Apple has nearly completed its transformation, Google has started compressing margins in the mobile space, which has in turn started to put pressure on the margins of this nearly completely transformed company. Look at the progression of the revenue/product mix over time.

As can be seen from the chart below, Apple is not a phone/tablet company…

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From margin perspective, one may see an extra hit to margins as Apple has actually had a relative increase in Mac sales, whose margins are materially lower than iPad and iPhones. This will be compounded by iPhone 5 and iPad mini sales, both of which have lower margins than the products they replaced or are cannibalizing.

Now, follow the trend in entity level margin compression (below) while cross referencing the (the product mix revenue above) and you will see that there is a near saturation of mobile products, with lesser margin tablets and even lower margin notebooks creeping in over the last three quarters…

As a matter of fact, this has been the largest drop in margin (in terms of %) since I’ve followed the company.

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Oh, and BTW, you can have shrinking margins AND shrinking market share, re: 4:58 in this CNBC video below (watch the whole clip if you haven't seen it before).

So, exactly how did this all come to be?

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 Stay tuned. Tradable numbers will be forthcoming to subscribers (click here to subscribe) within 48 hours. To all retail investors (pros should know better) who do not subscribe, please do not attempt to read into what's in the subscription material by guessing from my public posts. All of the opinion and analysis that I make public has been of extremely high quality and quite accurate in aggregate, but it was not intended to be used as investment advice. That is what you pay for.

 software collage

Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece that essentially channeled BoomBustBlog. It was quite controversial, Why spend six figures on a business degree? Students would do better to train and network on their own.

Imagine that you have been accepted to Harvard Business School. The ivy-covered buildings and high-powered faculty whisper that all you need to do is listen to your teachers, get good grades and work well with your peers. After two years, you'll emerge ready to take the business world by storm. Once you have that degree, you'll have it made.

But don't kid yourself. What matters exponentially more than that M.B.A. is the set of skills and accomplishments that got you into business school in the first place. What if those same students, instead of spending two years and $174,400 at Harvard Business School, took the same amount of money and invested it in themselves? How would they compare after two years?

If you want a business education, the odds aren't with you, unfortunately, in business school. Professors are rewarded for publishing journal articles, not for being good teachers. The other students are trying to get ahead of you. The development office is already assessing you for future donations. Administrators care about the metrics that will improve your school's national ranking. None of these things actually helps you learn about business.

Consider what you could do instead with that $174,400. The first step should be to move to a part of the country that supports your interests. If that's film, move to Los Angeles. Technology, San Francisco. Oil, Houston. You could live decently in these cities for $3,000 per month. Over the course of two years, that still leaves you $100,000 to invest in yourself.

Needless to say, I have addressed this in detail through many interviews, videos and articles over the last few months. Well, now, I offer the means to funamentally, arithmetically and convincingly prove the idealogy behind the assertion...

The Education Bubble Deflator & Valuation Software is now out of beta and available for purchase, download and use. See the end of this article for instructions on accessing the model. Here I will offer a brief overview of the model and the key findings from a hypothetical student funding his undergrad, grad and PhD studies with a 6% Sallie Mae loan. The application is designed to help individuals value their college/university education by calculating and valuing the real cash flows generated by diplomas/academic studies in addition to calculating the real world costs of obtaining said assets. 

We capture, quantify and illustrate the value of a diploma from higher education institutions across different disparate majors and give each a distinct eROI (Economic return on investment) figure for students pursuing these courses.  The app uses inputs of (1) expected salary of a student after completing a major, (2) the tuition payable for pursuing the major, (3) any loans that would be taken to finance the course fee, (4) a blended tax rate to compute disposable income, (4) interest rate for the loan, (5) household expenses that a person is likely to incur, (6) growth rates in salary, (7) Opportunity cost for pursuing a major full time, (8) and an adjustment for the unemployment rate to factor in the impact of unemployment.

The app also computes cash flows that a student is likely to earn over the life of his career after considering his installments for the loan repayment, household expenses, taxes and the opportunity cost for pursuing a course.

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Key Findings

The current weak economic environment has seriously dented the economic viability of pursuing a degree (Bachelors, Masters or a PhD) from some of the top universities in the US. The persistent decline in salaries being offered to graduates from these universities coupled with continued rise in cost of courses has resulted in a fall in economic return to students from these majors.

In the US, the trend of increasing duration of student loans and higher aggregate student loans outstanding are a matter of immediate attention. These trends have increased concern over higher student loan default in the near future, resultantly seriously raising the need for evaluation of value of securitized assets based on such loans. In essence, it’s the mortgage bubble all over again.

Return from Undergraduate Courses

Almost all universities (listed below) offer very low returns over a student’s career life if aggregated as an “all majors” category. The high cost of courses and lowering of salary being offered upon completion of courses are major drivers for lower returns.

NPV @6% p.a is negative for all schools on an aggregated basis and even on a specific, major by major basis.

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Even when looked at on a more granular basis, we get the following...

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As can be seen, the returns are middling at best, particularly when compared with other forms of investment over time. Resultantly the break-even year impractically far in most cases - after the year 2040 (assuming a start year of 2013).

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As a matter of fact, we have actually marked the cash flows from this person's education to market, benchmarking it against several other risk assets. From an undergraduate perspective, it's a dismal comparison for the most part. The returns are far lower compared with the 30-year average return on equities (5-6%) and 20-year return on commercial real estate (>7%) and 30-year return on Gold (4.5%). When taking individual majors into consideration, the numbers get even more interesting for diversity comes into play. The accompanying app shows the divergence in value not only between different majors within a school, but also the same majors between different schools, thereby actually valuing both the majors and the schools themselves!

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The model conveniently allows one to actually compare returns on a specific major between schools. This is invaluable in choosing schools. Most students and their parents select schools based on nominal affordabilty and/or repuation.

Now you can compare schools based on actual economic performance upon graduation - the way it should have been done from the beginning!!!

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Things Generally Look Much Better For Graduate Degrees, But..... The Catch 22!!!

Return from Postgraduate Courses

Postgraduate degrees offer a much better return compared with other asset classes than do undergraduate degrees. The break-even year is achieved much earlier, in most cases within 12-16 years. NPV @6% is positive in all the cases. The problem is that in order to pursue a master's degree you first must obtain an undergraduate degree which has a very high probability of putting you in the hole!

Return from PhD Courses

Similar to undergraduate courses, return from PhD courses is lower compared to postgraduate courses. The returns are also lower compared to 30-year average return on equities (5-6%) and 20-year return on commercial real estate (>7%) and 30-year return on Gold (4.5%). The break-even year is achieved after a very long time, after almost 26-28 years.

Download Your Copy of the Education Bubble Deflator and Valuation Software Now! 

The cost is 29.99 for 30 days of use, but the first 100 users will get a 1 year subscription.

1. Subscribe to BoomBustBlog
2. Pay for the software here - $29.99.
3. Download the software model here -  College & University Education Valuation Model.
4. Optionally, download the instructions if you're not comfortable with income and cash flows:  Education Bubble Deflator & Valuation Model Instructions

This file must be opened in Libre Office Portable, a free lighteweight office suite that does not leave traces or changes on the client computer. You can download Libre Office Portable for free here: PortableApps 97 MB. A portable version of LibreOffice packaged in PortableApps.com Format, so you can take all your documents and everything you need to work from a USB, cloud or local drive. See PortableApps.com for more information.

Discuss this software, its findings and collaborate with othes on Facebook.

 More on this topic...

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It all started in June of 2011, many months before the IPO of one of the biggest scams to cross the US equity exchanges (and that's saying a lot in and of itself). I posted a forensic analysis of Groupon “What Does Groupon and the Matrix Have In Common?". I warned, I valued, the company went public, and... Nov 12, 2012 Multiple Muppet Mashing Leaves Groupon Shareholders Holding The Bag After 89% Off IPO Coupon. In that particular post, I actually offered the full Groupon research to download for free. It's amazing how this obvious Ponzi scheme got so much analyst and investor attention. Any and all BoomBustBlog subscribers saw it for exactly what it was, and hopefully shorted accordingly!

Earlier, I got on the Ponzi Exposure Express once again... Sep 26, 2011 I Suggest Groupon Offer Coupons To It's IPO Investors, They're Going To Need Them. And previous to that, once again...

Here's an abstract from our June subscriber-only analysis - Groupon Forensic Analysis & Valuation (923.04 kB 2011-06-16 10:34:36):

“Groupon’s revenue consists of the gross amount paid by customers for purchased Groupon while gross profit is the amount that the company retains after paying its merchants an agreed upon percentage of the purchase price to the featured merchant. So the comparable number for price-to-sales to use for Groupon is gross profit, or the fees it collects from merchants, which the management has correctly stated as the best proxy for the value created by the company. To put things into perspective, if eBay used the same math as Groupon does, it would have reported revenues of $61bn instead of $9bn. The company reported gross profit of $530m over last 12 months. At $25bn valuation that would put the valuation at 42x “comparable sales”. To put things in perspective, Google trades at Price-to-sales of 5.8x, Apple at 4.7x, Microsoft at 3.3x, Amazon at 2.6x and Yahoo at 3.4x.“

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In the latest S-1 registration statement, the company has revised its revenue figures by more than half. The company has restated its 2010 revenues from $713m to $313m while Q1-11 revenues were restated to $296m from $645m previously. The company has restated its financial results “to correct for an error” in the way it reported revenue. The revenue accounting change is Groupon’s second since it filed to go public. The company has also changed the presentation of certain expenses to be consistent with reporting revenue. Clearly, such errors and frequent change in the accounting policies clearly puts strain on the credibility of management – and that’s putting it lightly, especially for a company that is contemplating an IPO, not to mention that such changes are top line numbers such as revenues. In another blow to Groupon, the company’s COO Margo Georgiadis is leaving the firm to join back Google.

How about... Muppets Get MASHED Once Again - Groupon Half-off (Share price) Sale, Aug 14, 2012 – CNBC reports that Groupon [GRPN 5.815 -1.735 (-22.98%)] plunged more than 20 percent...

I can go on, but why bother? This company was pumped, dumped and marketed by several big name analysts and banks. One would think independent analyst shops would be one of the biggest shops in all of Wall Street, no?

The following is a guest post by a very bright individual whom I've had the pleasure of building with on several occasions, Mr. Mordechai Grun. This is what he's had to say on the topic of Europe, with ample commentary from me along the way.

_______________________________________________________

Human behavior predications usually follow the ‘least resistance, least painful, and self serving’ path in spite of its being harmful in the long run. This disposition is even more truly said of politicians and bureaucrats. "Will is the origin of all thought." Flowing from such will we have the intellectual analysis and arguments to justify those behaviors. We will therefore look at Europe through this lens and see where it takes us.

The next major crisis in Europe is lurking just beyond the bend.

Reggie’s note: the last crisis has actually never left, so this is not the next one, just a continuation of the same. I called this exactly three years ago, in explicit detail (The Coming Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis – introduces the crisis and identified it as a pan-European problem, not a localized one)

It will take form as either the comeback of Bond vigilantes or as a political calamity, where some peripheral country finally votes for a party that is seriously proposing to forsake the Euro.

Reggie’s Note: The EU Has Rescued Greece From the Bond Vigilantes,,, April Fools!!!

Or… As I Warned Earlier, Latvian Government Collapses Exacerbating Financial Crisis

Some smart politician will certainly test the ECB’s resolve and do away with austerity and call their bluff. The consensus of the population can only be subjected to so much strain before it turns on itself and they vote for radical (read: costly) change. While the case can be made that the government bond-funding crisis has subdued, the economic pain of the general public has not.

Reggie’s note: Financial Contagion vs. Economic Contagion: Does the Market Underestimate the Effects of the Latter?

The likeliest scenario is that both of these crises will play out at the same time, thus creating a Lehman-type crisis.

Faced with this crisis, only two options will present themselves:

1. Massive sovereign debt defaults, bank runs and bankruptcies as many banks’ liabilities are larger than the GDP of the countries that are guaranteeing them – and a potentially resulting currency crisis

Reggie’s note: Ovebanked, Underfunded, and Overly Optimistic: The New Face of Sovereign Europe

Sovereign Risk Alpha: The Banks Are Bigger Than Many of the Sovereigns

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1. A truly massive QE Program that not only bails out the banks and the existing governments debt and deficit, but also sponsors an enormous stimulus program for anything that can be thought of, e.g. infrastructure, education, green energy, etc.

Following scenario B, the challenge will be this: Why would the Germans and Fins want to debase their currency to send their monies elsewhere? The answer will be a mix of ‘candy and stick’, so to speak. The QE stimulus program will be structured upon some European formula – per capita or otherwise – that sends significant amounts of newly printed money to them too, while, in the alternative, if the Euro disintegrates, Germany will have to recapitalize the Bundasbank and resort to either massive stimuli or quantitative easing so to cheapen their currency and rescue their own economy. Those countries that leave the Euro will, nevertheless, default on any external bondholders, as they are restructured and recapitalized in the new currency, their banks will default as well. Why wouldn’t Germany be gracious and monetarily benevolent with funds they would lose either way? This would blend in with the fact that even the new Mark will be too expensive for their export-driven economy, and they would be pressed to cheapen it. They also won’t have destination countries to export to in Europe, as each country will turn to hyper-protectionism, safeguarding the jobs they have from disappearing in an effort to stabilize their home currency in order to avoid hyper inflation (Argentina, anyone?).

Reggie's Note: A Comparison of Our Greek Bond Restructuring Analysis to that of Argentina - Now, referencing the bond price charts below as well as the spreadsheet data containing sovereign debt restructuring in Argentina, we get... Price of the bond that went under restructuring and was exchanged for the Par bond in 2005

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Price of the bond that went under restructuring and was exchanged for the Discount bond

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This turmoil will, obviously, generate widespread economic malaise as well. As a politician faced with this decision the answer is obvious. I can already picture the smiling politicians announcing their courageous decisions and courses of action, claiming that they have saved the Euro from certain demise while helping the people and creating new projects and job opportunities that will launch Europe into the future. It is possible that they will punish the instigator (Greece, presumably) and cut them out of the money party aka Lehman.

Is this feasible for Europe? I believe the answer is yes, as one significant minutia is overlooked. The Euro is way too high, even for Germany. This will become ever clearer as time clambers on. Europe can survive – even thrive – at 0.65 Euro to the dollar. I recall this precise scenario in Canada during the early 90s. The resulting inflation at the consumer level was much milder than expected, as taxes, services, rents, salaries and many consumer goods and products (including cars) are priced in the local currency. Of course, energy costs would rise. In Europe, though, lowering the high taxes on fuel can mitigate this. On the positive side, manufacturing and tourism in Canada flourished, generating a strong trade surplus (this was prior to the commodity boom). Europe can probably afford 6-8 trillion in QE over a 3-year period without hyperinflation, especially as this will be taking place while many other major currencies are orchestrating their own QE. If, as they do this, the peripherals restructure their own economies and bring down or solve their structural or primary deficits, the Euro may actually increase eventually, as they will have significantly lowered their debt to GDP ratios and positioned themselves on a financially sustainable path.

Reggie's note: This is code language for DEFAULT! The defaults will codify, quantify and solidify the capital destruction that we all know is there in the first place. I don't think the ride will be quite that easy. Greece has defaulted (exactly as I anticipated and clearly called) and is about to default again, and it's still f#@ked. For more on this, reference This Time Is Different As Icarus Blows Up & Burns The Birds Along The Way - Greece Is About To Default AGAIN! ... and then there's the contagion effect! Subscribers, see

• •  Sovereign Contagion Model - Retail (961.43 kB 2010-05-04 12:32:46)
  •  Sovereign Contagion Model - Pro & Institutional

All others, reference: 

1. 1. Financial Contagion vs. Economic Contagion: Does the Market Underestimate the Effects of the Latter?
   2. The Depression is Already Here for Some Members of Europe, and It Just Might Be Contagious!
   3. Introducing The BoomBustBlog Sovereign Contagion Model: Thus far, it has been right on the money for 5 months straight!
   4. With Europe’s First Real Test of Contagion Quarrantine Failing, BoomBustBloggers Should Doubt the Existence of a Vaccination

The sad reality, though, is that they will promise such changes and not deliver on their word.

Reggie's Note: WHAAAT???!!! You mean you can't trust the European oligarchs??? 

• Lies, Damn Lies, and Sovereign Truths: Why the Euro is Destined to Collapse!
• Smoking Swap Guns Are Beginning to Litter EuroLand, Sovereign Debt Buyer Beware!
• Greek Crisis Is Over, Region Safe”, Prodi Says – I say Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!
• Germany Finally Comes Out and Says, “We’re Not Touching Greece” – Well, Sort of…

This will turn the crisis into only a short- to medium-term solution while eventually creating a fundamental currency crisis that will give way to no solutions.

Can the Euro handle that much QE? I believe the answer is yes. The ECB can forgive all the bonds they either own or collected as collateral for loans. Does anyone believe the principal on these loans will ever be paid down? The only stimulus from such a move will be the miniscule interest being saved.

Reggie's note: Moral hazard be damned, eh? What's to prevent other market participants from pushing to get a similar deal of borrowing money and not paying it back, expecting not to get punished. Massive forgiveness on this scale will fracture the market mechanism and destroy market pricing (as if it's not already wrecked as it is, does anybody really think core European bonds should yield what they do now?)

However, from a public confidence perspective, it would be huge, as it would drastically lower debt to GDP ratios.

Reggie's note: It will also bring about massively more stringent underwriting the next time around, effectively driving up rates anyway - you know, just as rates would have been driven up had the borrowers defaulted. Who in they're right mind would voluntarily make the same mistake twice in so short a period of time. As a reminder from my seminal link Greece Sneezes, The Euro Dies of Pneumonia! Yeah, Sounds Bombastic, Yet True!

Wait until a 2nd Greek default (virtually guaranteed as we supplied user downloadable models to see for yourself, the same model used to forecast the 1st default) mirrors history. Of the 181 yrs as a sovereign nation after gaining independence, Greece been in default 58 of them. Don't believe me! Check your history, or just read more BoomBustBlog - Sophisticated Ignorance Or Just A Very, Very Short Term Memory? Foolish Talk of German Bailouts Once Again...

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It is important to note that Europe will be faced with a stark choice: either deflate assets and wages or deflate the currency. And, since as discussed, the Euro needs a significant reduction anyway, why not milk it and bring it down through QE?  The crisis created by a country like Spain leaving the Euro will harm the Euro by much more than a giant QE would. There exists capacity for Europe to kick this one down a really long road and, with some discipline, actually solve it along the way.

Reggie's note: Possible, yes! Probable, Nah!!!

The challenge will be that, unlike the US, Europe has multiple players and can't turn on a dime. The crisis, when it comes, will be overwhelming, and will require solutions over a weekend or short bank holiday. Can so many politicians and central bankers on opposing sides of the language barrier figure out that their collective interests are far more in harmony than their differences? Prejudice, ego and vindictiveness – combined with an overly sensationalist media and so many involved players – stage the scene for things to easily get out of hand. If history is any guide, the answer is not very encouraging. However, Europe now shares a bureaucracy and central bank as well as a mostly shared corporate interest. So let's hope this time around is a bit different.

Reggie's note: I really liked this piece, and Mordechai is bright fellow. Of course I like it better with my commentary, which sort of... well.. Keeps it real!

In closing...

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Split-AppleRumors are floating around the social media circles regarding a potential stock split for Apple. A split from such a high prices only has one distinct advantage that I can think of. It gives those with smaller retail accounts the opportunity to to buy more shares. This is purely psychological, for 3 shares at $400 is the same value as one share at $1200. Only when shares break relatively high price levels, ex. $100k as in Berkshire Hathaway, does splitting make more economic sense in accessing the retail market, for those shares are likely out of the reach of the hoi polloi, even on a singular basis.

Stock splits don't effect PE directly (earnings are divvied up among more shares, but are done so proportionately), although indirectly the price per share may increase from the psychological effect, causing a slight and very temporary uptick in demand.

Only short term thinking traders really want Apple to return cash, reference Apple, Big Hedge Fund Stars & The Sell Side/Vaudeville Act To Burn Your Hard Earned Money As A Punchline That's Just Not Funny. Apple needs to put that cash horde to work aggressively, and quite quickly to build up its expertise and assets in the cloud, where it's sorely behind and in danger of never catching up. Apple also needs to significantly beef up its hardware and software in the portable device field. All three of these aspirations will hit margins, and Apple is seriously behind in all three aspects as well. For more on this, reference In Case The Mainstream Media Didn't Get The Memo, I Crush The Apple Reality Distortion Field On CNBC.

Giving cash to shareholders when you should be investing it yourself is an awful idea for the long term prominence of this company, whose days already appear to be quite numbered as a leading tech titan.

Now, to be honest, all tech titan's days are numbered, at least as a tech titan. Apple is currently and sorely outclassed in the tech features and capability race at the same time it has lost its iconic leader and competition has more than quintupled.