(San Francisco)

The fallout from the revelation that Apple’s operating systems drain the batteries of older model phones appears to be hammering the company. The company admitted they deliberately slowed down the performance of older phones to keep them from crashing. The admission has led to widespread criticism and lawsuits are headed the company’s way. Apple has tried to mitigate the issue by cutting prices for replacement batteries and offering free software to check battery health.

FINSUM: We have this fear that this battery and performance scandal might be the beginning of the end of the golden age of Apple.

(New York)

Stock investors may be in for some big upside surprises while bond investors’ hearts may sink. The new tax regime may have a major unintended consequence for bond markets. With the new lower corporate tax rate, many multinationals are likely to repatriate hundreds of billions of Dollars. For the last several years, much of that money has been parked in Treasuries and other bonds. But with the ability and likelihood of reshoring, companies are likely to pull huge amounts of capital out of bonds and put it into stock buybacks and dividends. This could be a big plus for equities, but bond markets could sink as massive amounts of capital are withdrawn.

FINSUM: This is the first convincing argument we have heard for why any fundamental force, outside of the Fed, could bring about a bond bear market.

(New York)

The end of the exciting but short-lived Bitcoin era may be upon us. As everyone will know, the cryptocurrency surged this year by around 2000%, from $1,000 up to $20,000. However, after worries and threats of regulation, bitcoin has fallen back steeply and is now trading at around $10,000 or just half what it was a few weeks ago. One prominent fund manager commented on bitcoin that “Having no clear fundamental value and largely unregulated markets, coupled with a storyline conducive to delusions of grandeur, makes this more than anything we can find in the history books the very essence of a bubble”.

FINSUM: It is next to impossible to forecast what bitcoin will do, but it should be noted that the cryptocurrency has bounced back from 50% drops before in this big rally.

(Washington)

RIAs are furious about one aspect of the broader tax package passed last month. That is the way the government puts limits on the amount of income and type of entity that can use the new lower tax rate for pass through entities. RIAs say the new rules discriminate against RIAs that are not set up as C Corps. There is already a major movement to get the rule changed being led by Savant Capital Management. “We believe RIAs deserve the same tax treatment as other business owners” says TD Ameritrade.

FINSUM: We noticed before the new package got passed that it seemed to very deliberately exclude some sectors. Hard to judge the chances of this push succeeding.

(New York)

It looks like the end of the road for one of the most popular and successful subsections of the REIT business. For the last decade there has been a veritable gold rush in self storage units. The business is a very profitable one and operators were able to charge gigantic rent increases over the last several years because of a lack of new supply. However, the market is now being flooded with new rental units, which could spell the end of the boom. There are also some demographic factors working against self storage, such as how Millennials collect less stuff than previous generations, and are likely to inherit large houses form their parents.

FINSUM:This is a succinct and well-conceived argument on the sector. That said, it does not look like performance will fall off a cliff, just that the best years are behind self-storage for now.