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April 1, 2008

Best/Worst Q1 Performers

The good people over at Bespoke have up a useful table of the best/worst performers of Q1/08 from the Russell 3000. Here they are, with an energy stock leading the way up:

bestquarter

worstquarter

Paulson Plan Pillorying Proceeds

Great to see that I'm not alone in pillorying Henry Paulson's plan for regulation reform in the U.S. Damn investment bankers think every solution involves M&A or a takeover, and that's what Paulson is trying to orchestrate here. This thing is looking increasingly unlikely, a mere 24 hours later.

More here.

Doug Kass Poses Market Rorschach Test

Doug Kass over at TheStreet/RealMoney has posed a kind of backdoor market Rorschach test today. By posted a faux conversion/confession on his supposed shift from bearishness to raging bullishness he got lots of attention -- and now bears and bulls alike are harumphing about it.

Why? Because bears are using it to say bulls are idiots, in that they drove stocks higher on a major bear's implausible conversion to bullishness, and that just shows how frothy things are, and so you should Sell. And bulls are saying that the market's extreme sensitivity to a Kass's implausible conversion from bearishness to bullishness shows how oversold things are, therefore you should buy.

Such fun. More here.

The Case of the Disappearing iPhones

This is a strange story: According to various sources, most Apple stores in the country are newly out of iPhones. While you can order them from the Apple Store with 5-7 day delivery, you can't get them in stores.

Just to fact-check this a little, I made a few calls myself. I talked to six southern California Apple stores, and here is the gist:

  • No iPhones at any of these six stores
  • Most ran out Friday/Saturday
  • They don't know when they will get more, so "just keep calling"
  • It hasn't happened before

This is tough one to figure. Strikes me that one of three things is going on:

  1. Apple has a component issue and is doing a quiet recall
  2. Apple has a supply issue with a major sole-source supplier
  3. Apple is set to do a surprise launch of a 3G phone

I can't think of any other explanation, and none of these are very palatable. Even option 3), which would be nice, is disconcerting in the face of Apple unable to sell iPhones in-store for 4-ish days now. Anyone have any other ideas here?